How Designing a Child-Friendly Map Can Lead to a More Sustainable City

Mara Mintzer (Growing Up Boulder, University of Colorado)

Our organization is developing the nation’s first child-friendly city map. A collaborative of 30 nonprofits, city agencies, and schools is using participatory action research to design a map featuring child-friendly locations and transit throughout the city. This free, bilingual map will go home with all elementary and preschool children before summer vacation.

Both the map’s features and the map-making process meet the city’s sustainability and resilience goals of social, environmental, and economic sustainability. Our commitment to social sustainability is embedded in our participatory planning approach, which use a variety of methods to gather the voices of children with disabilities, of limited financial means, and from immigrant and minority backgrounds. By the end of the project, more than 300 children and 300 parents/caregivers will contribute to the map.

The map supports environmental sustainability in several ways. It contains child-identified wild and outdoor spaces, including hiking trails, lakes and parks, in order to connect children and families to nature. Research shows that children must have personal interactions with nature if they are to becomes future environmental stewards. By highlighting child-friendly biking, walking, and busing routes, sustainable transportation becomes fun and accessible. School classes will develop scavenger hunts and geocaching adventures to make walking and biking even more engaging.

Finally, the map contributes to economic sustainability by emphasizing free or low-cost activities. Only cultural and recreational locations are included on the printed version of the map, so that all families may take advantage of the city’s amenities.

Our goal is for families and city planners to consider our community’s child-friendly assets, as well as barriers, in order to design a more sustainable, child-friendly city. Through documentation and evaluation the process, we hope to establish a transferrable, PAR model to benefit other cities.