Measuring child-friendly cities: developing and piloting an indicator assessment tool for sustainable neighborhood planning

The need to develop cities that meet the needs of children is vital. As neighborhoods become more important to the goal of urban sustainability, they must consider the developmental needs of children by allowing them to independently access places, to socialize, and learn from the built environment. Existing assessment tools are less relevant to sprawling cities typical in the U.S. are overly complex, and lack a neighborhood focus. In this paper, we develop a child friendly neighborhood assessment tool for use by urban planners and policymakers. We conduct a small-scale pilot in four neighborhoods in Glendale, Arizona and find that each neighborhood is deficient in multiple dimensions. We then assess the performance and limitations of the assessment tool and suggest ways to improve it in future iterations. Lastly, we discuss how urban planners can utilize the tool and how it connects to policies for creating more child-friendly and sustainable neighborhoods.