We have always been saying that the number of children on bikes is a litmus test on the livability and pleasantness of a city. It is also a sign of the paranoia of a society.

All parents should read Tim Gill‘s No Fear: Growing up in a risk-averse society.

Tim has been invited to give the next Street Talk.

It is often said that kids today grow up faster than they used to. As a statement about their everyday freedoms, nothing could be further from the truth – as we know from the seminal work of Mayer Hillman on children’s independent mobility. Anxious parents are often blamed for this shift to a more captive childhood. Yet parents have to deal with the environment that is around them. For decades, transport and planning policies have worked against creating the kind of compact, liveable neighbourhoods that help parents to untie the apron strings.

The everyday lives and neighbourhoods of city children were a key focus of the work of great urbanists like Jane Jacobs (who devoted a whole chapter of Death and Life of Great American Cities to the topic) and Kevin Lynch (who, after his seminal Image of the City, went on to spearhead UNESCO’s international Growing Up in Cities programme in the 1970s). Recent years have seen lively debate about both the future of cities and the changing nature of childhood. Yet there have been few serious attempts to join the dots.

Tim Gill argues that this has to change. Join us for February’s Street Talk to explore why children’s everyday freedoms matter: to them, to communities, to policy makers and to the planet. Just as with the salmon or the house sparrow, children’s presence in public space should be seen as an indicator of the quality of their habitats. Is the outdoor child becoming an endangered species?

Upstairs at The Yorkshire Grey, 2 Theobalds Road, WC1X 8PN at 19:00 (bar open 18:00) on 7th February.

Picture of Shirley Temple via Rides a Bike