Stadskinderen: verschillende generaties over de dagelijkse strijd om de ruimte (City Children: The Daily Struggle for Space by Different Generations)
Bouw, Carolien and Karsten, Lia (2004).
Amsterdam: Aksant; 211 pages. $€ 15.00 (US$ 21.00). ISBN 9052601682.
This noteworthy study examines children’s access to and use of urban public space across several generations. It uses this historical perspective to describe what has changed between roughly the 1950s and the present, at the same time that it identifies variations and similarities between children of different social classes and ethnic backgrounds. Although the research was undertaken in Amsterdam and the book published in Dutch, its findings should be of wider interest. Interviews and observations, carried out in a three-site comparison, show children on the losing end of a constant struggle over public space. However, the study also makes clear that the outcomes of this struggle are not uniform, but vary as a function of children’s differential access to compensatory factors and resources in their family and neighborhood. The authors argue that families with children are an important form of urban social capital and, based on their research results, the authors offer various recommendations in support of child-friendly cities.
The book is organized into ten chapters. The first chapter sets the stage for the research through a brief review of several key issues faced by children living in Dutch cities in general and Amsterdam in particular. It notes a trend of outmigration by families, but points out that the capital city remains the living environment for a large number of families with children. Most of them fall into three main categories: wealthy households, dual-earner households, and immigrant households that cannot afford life in the suburbs or towns near Amsterdam. Despite their diversity, parents in these households share a responsibility of providing their children with safe environments that support healthy development. Their ability to do so is increasingly challenged by threats to the amount and the quality of public space available. The authors suggest that the focus of their analysis on children’s everyday lives serves as a magnifying glass that exposes urban development dynamics at work in the city at large, although this is not a point that is further developed.
The authors detail the methodological aspects of the study in Chapter Two, which first describes the selection of three streets (the units of analysis), according to four criteria: All streets were (1) developed before World War II (to allow for a comparison across generations); and (2) inhabited by a minimum of 20 elementary school age children. In addition, the researchers selected with a view to variation between streets in terms of (3) ethnic composition; and (4) social class. Illustrated by photos , the everyday lives of the children residing in the three selected streets take place in very different physical environments. The second part of this chapter reviews methods of data collection, including reviews of past research and media coverage; study of archival and census data; observation of the use of public spaces; and interviews with the children, their parents, current neighbors and former street residents. There is also discussion of validity threats (e.g., an inclination on the part of the grown ups to romanticize the past).
Subsequent chapters provide a wealth of information on children’s use of space (indoors and outdoors—chapter 3) and time (programmed and unprogrammed—chapter 4); the tension between needs for adventure and safety (chapter 5) and, relatedly, needs for independent mobility vs. physical boundaries and supervision (chapter 6); questions of social integration in an ethically heterogeneous neighborhood (chapter 7); parents’ evaluations of their street, neighborhood and city as a place to raise children (chapter 8); followed by a summary chapter and a concluding chapter that offers recommendations for supporting the needs of children and their families in cities.
Children under 13 make up 14 percent of Amsterdam’s population as they do in the three streets in this study (13 percent, 14 percent and 14 percent, respectively). Like many western cities, Amsterdam has lost population in recent decades. Today, there are also fewer children than there were in the 1950s. Ironically, the increase in urban space per child has not resulted in a greater availability of outdoor play space. The reasons for this paradox are twofold: the rise in car ownership, which makes streets less safe and more polluted, and the decline in the number of children, whose smaller critical mass makes it harder both to find playmates and to lay claim to public space, so children are now more often relegated to specially designated places. Whereas the older generation reports that their play almost invariably was outdoors, today many more play activities happen inside the home, often alone or with just one other child. Children spend more time at home, in part, because they more often have a room of their own as cellars and attics have become rooms (but have thus lost their value as “mysterious” play spaces). Other contributing factors have been central heating and a general democratization of other spaces in the home, making kitchens, hallways, living rooms and even parents’ bedrooms into potential play space. As a result, childhood has become more domesticized and children’s street lives have become more impoverished. The costs of this development are being borne particularly by children of low-income families who live in small homes in high-density neighborhoods.
Although children’s involvement in household chores has clearly declined across generations in all three of the streets studied, their time is much more scheduled with programmed activities tied to a specific day, time, and place. Children’s time use is less free and more structured, typically through membership in various clubs and organizations which parents see as desirable for the development of competence. However, across generations and across the three streets, there are differences in the competencies that parents value.
With respect to safety, parents in the past mentioned as greatest risk factors: traffic (accidents), water (drowning), and “dangerous men” (abductions). Children themselves would add older children (bullying) to the list. Today, traffic is listed as the undisputed top hazard (even though the number of children involved in accidents has actually decreased). Water is less of a concern as more children have learned how to swim. Dangerous men are a problem chiefly in the street characterized by high social diversity.
Overall, across generations, there has been a shift from a parental view of children as being resilient and having to resolve issues on their own to a view of children as being vulnerable and needing protection. This change has given rise to all manner of rules and greater prominence of supervisors. Paradoxically, the lesser presence of parents in children’s daily lives today (e.g., because both are employed) has led to greater need for supervision, which more often needs to be planned and organized, and happens less often “naturally” as a collective responsibility of neighbors. Against this background, children’s outdoor activity space has bifurcated: their home range for independent mobility has become much smaller (including many fewer children walking to school), whereas at the same time they partake in a global world and what the authors call “urban archipelago.” In their car or on the back of their bike, parents take their children to a variety of organized activities outside the neighborhood. They also go on vacations in far-flung places, often tourist resorts or migrants’ hometowns in other countries, creating a much more fragmented world for children.
This quilt of disconnected islands also means that children living in the same street less often share a common frame of reference, which is accentuated further as parents pursue their children’s association with others based more on choice of suitable peers and less on constraints of spatial proximity. Children thus become part of homogeneous, non-geographical network communities, leading to social segregation at the street level. Ironically, segregation is greatest where social diversity is greatest—there is more bonding with like children than bridging with others who are different. Between immigrant and native-born parents, linguistic barriers also play a role. Further, immigrant children tend to go to different schools and street life does little to undo the pattern of separate life worlds.
Parents in all three streets say that outdoor play is of the utmost importance for healthy development of their children. However, two of the streets afford very few opportunities for safe play. In one of these streets, well-to-do parents try to compensate in various ways (e.g., taking their children elsewhere to play, visit friends, or participate in organized activities) but the low-income parents in the other street do not have the means for such compensatory behavior and would prefer to move to a more supportive environment if they had the opportunity. Very clearly, the physical environment and social class have an interaction effect on children’s everyday lives.
The authors conclude that, more than in the past, the experiences of growing up are diverse and the socioeconomic and ethnic differences are greater. They also observe a decline of the street as a public realm that facilitates social integration among children from different backgrounds. Nonetheless, they do not see just doom and gloom, but recognize that the city offers a mix of advantages and disadvantages for children as places to grow up. The final chapter offers recommendations for making cities more supportive of the needs of families with children and spreading the costs and benefits of urban living more evenly. Some implications concern the physical environment (e.g., creating meeting spaces, widening sidewalks). Others have to do with developing the potential of schools to function as community centers and the role of local government in allocating and regulating space.
This brief review cannot do justice to the richness of the material presented in this book, which details important differences in the lives of children who grew up or are growing up in three very different streets—streets which themselves have changed as their wider city environment was transformed as well. The book reveals important differences in the lives of children who grew up or are growing up in three very different streets—streets which themselves have changed as their wider city environment was transformed as well. It is all too rare to read a book that gives such extensive accounting of research methods and findings and is still a pleasure to read all the way through. One aspect of the work remains underdeveloped, however, perhaps because the authors did not see it as their charge. The book does not pursue as fully as it might the ways in which parents, neighbors, and children (could) seek to improve conditions in their streets. Readers are told that parents frequently criticize the city as a place to grow up, and we learn of some steps that they take towards improvement (e.g., placing private play equipment in public places; requesting wider sidewalks and traffic calming street design). However, coverage of these issues remains brief and the authors do not focus on either the potential of or the constraints on community-based, participatory action. Instead, they identify a range of possible interventions and responses, not discussing any one of them in detail but referencing sources for those wanting to follow up in greater depth. This somewhat truncated treatment aside, one must hope that before long the authors will publish their work in English as well.
Reviewer Information
Editor, Children, Youth and Environments
Willem van Vliet-- is a mental laborer with undefined skills. He has a Ph.D. in Sociology (University of Toronto), etc., etc. He became immersed in children's environments and housing problems by birth, below sea level in an aporphyrogenic bunker in the postwar shortage-ridden Netherlands. A.k.a. El Capitán, he is in possession of an uncertified but authentic and persistent lunatic streak, evinced, inter alia, by his editing of the Encyclopedia of Housing and a growing stockpile of more and less odd ends. Since coming to CU, he has retained an abiding interest in heather morning glory and rock gardening. Dessert remains his favorite dish.