February 2012 Street Talks
Tim Gill, Rethinking Childhood: There's a salmon in my street - The outdoor child as an indicator species for the quality of urban environments
Brought to you by Movement for Liveable London - movementforliveablelondon.com
7. Opportunities for
spontaneous play
may be the only
requirement that
young children need
to increase their
physical activity.
William H Dietz
Former director, Division of Nutrition and Physical
Activity, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
11. Lord of the Flies, or Cabin Fever?
• UK: rise in adolescent mental health problems
• Not just family breakdown, social class
• “Has something changed about
peer group interactions and
non-family socialization?”
12. In real life, only from the
ordinary adults of the city
sidewalks do children
learn – if they learn it at all
- the first fundamental of
successful city life: People
must take a modicum of
public responsibility for
each other even if they
have no ties to each other.
13. This is a lesson nobody
learns by being told. It is
learned from the
experience of having
other people without ties
of kinship or close
friendship or formal
responsibility to you take
a modicum of
responsibility for you.
14. It appears that
encouraging or
supporting children to
walk to or from school
provides them with a
more connected and
detailed understanding
of their neighbourhood.
15.
16. Part 1: Why do children‟s
everyday freedoms matter?
Part 2: What has gone wrong,
and why?
1 2
22. England and Germany 1990 and 2010
Percentage of children allowed to travel home from school independently
England and Germany in 1990 and 2010
100%
90%
80%
70%
60%
England 1990
50% Germany 1990
England 2010
40%
Germany 2010
30%
20%
10%
0%
7 8 9 10 11P 10S 11S 12 13 14 15