A Critical Review of Standards to Examine the Parameters of Child-Friendly Environment (CFE) in Parks and Open Space of Planned Neighborhoods: A Case of Lucknow City, India

Abstract

The creation of cities has been one of the most phenomenal achievements of human endeavor. Adults are the major stakeholders for such achievements but the children are helpless and representationless. The current research paper aims at understanding the issues faced by the children in the rapidly urbanized world where the lack of child-friendly environments/open spaces for their outdoor activities is cause for concern. The research paper looked at various national and international norms, standards, and practices of parks and open spaces to identify various child-friendly environmental parameters. The research adopted the Delphi method as a tool for the validation of child-friendly environment parameters. It also used children’s drawings and essays to understand children’s perceptions about the child-friendly environment. It is observed that present government norms and policies do not adhere to those parameters. The research found that Lucknow city does not meet the defined quantitative norms and standards as laid out by the national norms and standards for open spaces and parks. The quality dimensions for planning a child-friendly environment are weakly addressed by cities and neighborhoods. The city neighborhoods lack the physical, cognitive, perceptional, emotional, and social dimensions of a child-friendly environment. There is a need to adopt suitable norms and standards with measurable parameters as part of various dimensions and implement these in creating a child-friendly environment in planned neighborhoods.