Guideline Released to Promote the Shaping of Child-Friendly Cities (Part 1)

▲ Children have fun at a park in Weihai City, east China's Shandong Province. [Xinhua]

The National Development and Reform Commission, the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development and the National Working Committee on Children and Women under the State Council issued a Guideline for the Construction of Child-Friendly Urban Spaces, which served as a supporting document and provided standard solutions for building child-friendly cities.

1. Overall Requirements

1.1 Objectives

The guideline is formulated to meet the needs of children's healthy growth and development, and promote the shaping of child-friendly urban spaces.

1.2 Basic principles

Children first, fairness for all. Adhere to planning from the perspective of children, with the goal of better growth of children, and the principle of public welfare for the benefit of all, and promote the shaping of child-friendly spaces according to age and needs.

Safe and healthy, natural and interesting. Adhere to the principle of safety first, and insist on using green, safe and environmentally friendly materials in all types of construction to ensure the safety of construction and operation of various children's recreational facilities.

Adapt measures to local conditions, explore and innovate. Based on local conditions and characteristics, implement policies to promote the shaping of child-friendly urban spaces. Encourage qualified cities and regions to reform and innovate to explore models such as the building of child-friendly spaces and the establishment of child participation mechanisms.

1.3 Main contents

The building should be promoted at the three levels of city, neighborhood, and community, with a focus on the child-friendly transformation of public amenities, transportation systems, public spaces such as green parks, as well as the building of extracurricular activities venues and recreational facilities.

2. Planning Highlights

2.1 City level

At the city level, top-level design should be strengthened to build a comprehensive child-friendly space system. The system should be coordinated with a systematic layout and promoted as a whole. Regularly carry out evaluations on the shaping of urban child-friendly spaces, and optimize systems such as public amenities, public spaces, transportation systems, safety protection, etc.

2.1.1 Establish a public amenities system that cares for children's growth.

Establish a public amenities system for children in cities with multi-level coverage, full-featured functions and easy access. Public amenities including child care, education, medical care, public sports, child welfare, comprehensive services for children, books and reading, exhibitions, and art performances should meet the requirements of a child-friendly space building. Coordinate all levels and types of public amenities, expand children's extracurricular activities venues and form a well-distributed, fully functional, vibrant and sustainable activity spaces.

2.1.2 Create a natural and interesting open space system.

Establish a child-friendly open space system with diverse types, balanced layout and network connection. Actively carry out the construction and child-friendly transformation of open spaces such as countryside parks, comprehensive parks, special parks, community parks, pocket parks, and city squares to expand appropriate activity venues for children. Promote the construction of urban greenways connecting parks and green spaces, mountains, rivers and lakes, water systems, and cultural heritage, and carry out child-friendly transformation and construction of safety protection facilities.

2.1.3 Build a transportation system suitable for children.

Implement the urban road layout concept of “narrow roads, dense road networks and small-scale neighborhoods”, and optimize the scale of neighborhoods to improve the convenience of children’s travel. Optimize the travel environment of urban public transportation to enhance the travel comfort of children and strollers. Improve the urban road traffic safety facilities to ensure children’s safety. Strengthen children's traffic safety education and enhance children's safe travel capability.

2.1.4 Form a safe environment for children.

Regularly conduct health risk assessments of children's living and growing environments. The location and construction of various public amenities, municipal transportation facilities, parks and green spaces, extracurricular activities venues, and recreational facilities related to children should meet the requirements of relevant national standards and regulations. Use various urban facilities to provide targeted and experiential safety education activities for children. Strengthen the construction of security equipment in crowded places for children. Equip a signage system that is easy for children and caregivers to identify public amenities and public spaces used frequently by children.

2.2 Neighborhood

The neighborhood level should be connected with the 15-minute walking range as well as the urban street management service range, and focus on improving children's public amenities, activity venues, slow-traffic system, and school trail networks to build child-friendly neighborhood spaces.

2.2.1 Build well-distributed and fully functional accessorial children’s amenities.

According to the scale of the permanent population in the neighborhood, rationally plan the distribution of primary and secondary schools, health service centers, comprehensive street service facilities, etc. Set up children's activity centers in combination with neighborhood cultural activity centers. Encourage children's service facilities such as children's activity centers to be located adjacent to or jointly with elderly service facilities. Encourage the expansion of children's extracurricular activities venues relying on public service facilities such as public amenities, administrative departments, enterprises, scientific research institutions, etc.

2.2.2 Construct all-age-friendly children’s activity venues.

Encourage child-friendly transformation of community parks, building setback spaces, and other unused spaces in neighborhoods to provide additional all-age-friendly children’s activity venues under the premise of safety requirements. Encourage the integration of all-age-friendly children’s sports facilities with the neighborhood fitness center or multifunctional sports venues. Qualified neighborhoods can combine various landscapes to build natural education places that meet their physical and mental characteristics. Schools, administrative departments, enterprises, and institutions in the neighborhood are encouraged to share their activity venues with the surrounding residents and children.

2.2.3 Form a safe and convenient travel environment for children.

Build a safe, continuous and comfortable neighborhood slow-traffic system that is connected with urban public transportation. The slow-traffic system should be comprehensively designed with various children's amenities and activity venues. Encourage the construction of a child-friendly school trail network covering the neighborhood to connect residences, primary and secondary schools, and other children's service facilities and activity venues. Introduce the measures of traffic calming areas and give priority to improving the travel environment around children's main activities.

2.3 Community

The community level should be connected with the 5-10 minutes walking range as well as the scope of urban community management services and prioritizes the distribution of amenities, playgrounds and walking paths that meet the daily needs of infants, toddlers, and preschool children to meet the basic daily needs of children.

2.3.1 Build fully functional and convenient children's amenities.

Communities should build accessorial children's amenities by the number of permanent residents to meet the needs of children. Promote the child-friendly transformation of community service stations, community health service stations, cultural activity stations, and other facilities with children's reading areas and extracurricular self-study classrooms set up. Community children's amenities can be arranged and combined with other community service facilities.

2.3.2 Arrange characteristic and interesting children's activity venues.

Communities should make full use of playgrounds, pocket parks, multifunctional sports venues, etc. to provide additional children's playgrounds and sports venues. Encourage the use of unused community space to create children's "micro-spaces" for children to communicate, experience nature and participate in community cultural activities. Community emergency shelters should consider the physical and psychological needs of children, and be equipped with adequate living and protective materials for children.

2.3.3 Build safe and continuous travel paths for children.

Provide safe slow-traffic spaces for children to travel by modifying the alignment and section of community roads. Reasonable plan and manage the parking spaces for motor vehicles to avoid crowding children's travel and activity space. The community can provide more places for children's activities and build a children's pedestrian system to provide a safe and fun place for them. Traffic calming transformation for roads around residential areas, childcare facilities, kindergartens, children's playgrounds, and sports venues should be carried out to improve the safety and comfort of children's travel.

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Editor & Translator: GUO Xinxin