after a campaign led by London Play and local residents’ groups.27 Once a week, or once a month, the street is closed to through traffic, with a few volunteers ensuring that residents can drive safely in and out.
At first glance play streets don’t seem to deal with the tough stuff that should surely concern a mayoral hopeful: crime, transport, housing, health. A nice-to-have, perhaps, but a priority?
Yes. We think, a priority.
Public space in which to meet and play is the lifeblood of a thriving community, particularly for our children. Parks and playgrounds are vital but, astonishingly, roads make up 80 per cent of our public space in London.28 We have surrendered them almost entirely to the car. Some are major trunk roads where cars undoubtedly belong but most are the local, residential streets along which neighbours used to meet and children used to play.
This affects our environment and our safety but also our community life. Pioneering studies as far back as the 1960s have shown that roads with more cars have fewer community activities.29 Busy streets mean fewer chats over the front wall, fewer impromptu gatherings in the road, and fewer children playing out and drawing adults in. It is no coincidence that cul-de-sacs sustain the highest levels of social cohesion.30
These community relations themselves might seem inconsequential but – as the next chapter explores – the strength of our ties to friends and neighbours is vital to our health and happiness, our graduation rates, our chances of being a victim of crime and even our IQ.31 Close-knit, supportive communities are core to the ‘tough’ challenges mayors grapple with.
Play streets bring another health benefit too. When originally introduced in the 1930s they were intended to prevent children dying in traffic accidents. Today we have evolved different responses to the same problem – the TV screen and the computer console – which have themselves caused a different kind of health crisis. Some have linked rising obesity levels to the decline in spaces to play.
Play streets are not difficult to implement: a barrier at either end of the road, a few volunteers to keep things in order, perhaps a few games to play with, and the children will do the rest. Legally very little stands in the way – as the trailblazers in Bristol, Hackney and elsewhere have shown – although there are legislative changes the mayor could make that would ease the process. Richard McKeever suggested a ‘presumption of consent’ whereby local authorities would have to justify to parents why a street could not be closed once a week or once a month if there was local enthusiasm for it to become a play street.
We suggest that 1000 new play streets could emerge in London within the first year of a new mayoralty. At around thirty per borough, it is not unachievable: Hackney has nearly twenty already. Within a four-year mayoral term sights should be set even higher: Angus Hewlett suggested a minimum of 10,000 – about five per primary school and enough that most children would have a chance to take part. Sally Rogers suggested every borough could have a Play Street Activator, driving the adoption of play streets within their local authority.
Using the voice and visibility of the mayor to engage local councils and encourage willing volunteers, the campaign would draw heavily on the knowledge and enthusiasm of groups like Playing Out and London Play, who are pioneering the resurgence.32 The barriers are not financial or legislative but cultural and practical – exactly the kind that a bold, visionary mayor can take on and tear down.
Redesign Public Space around Children
Play streets redesignate existing space but there is also scope to redesign it from scratch, particularly in new developments. Rotterdam’s pursuit of its status as a child-friendly city required new or redesigned neighbourhoods to meet four criteria.33
(1) Child-friendly housing: specifications including a room for each child, a minimum amount of floor space, communal play areas and safe access.
(2) Public space: a set of development requirements that include, charmingly, ‘a pavement suitable for playing, 3.5 metres wide on at least one side of the street, preferably on the sunny side’ and ‘trees with seasonal variation’.
(3) Child-friendly facilities: including at least one ‘extended school’ per district, which provides services and activities for the whole community.
(4) Safe traffic routes: with a child-friendly network of streets in every neighbourhood.
Because local government in Rotterdam is highly localised, the city government offered each district a ‘scan’ of their neighbourhood, assessing compliance with the four criteria and suggesting changes that could be made, on the understanding that the district would endeavour to implement some of the ideas. Many did. The programme cost €15 million in total and ended in 2011, but its legacy lives on in actions that districts are still taking to make their areas more child friendly.
London’s mayor could use his or her planning influence to encourage and support the adoption of similar standards across the city. Progress might be incremental and it would take many years for the impact to be felt in every neighbourhood but, if adopted now, it would shape the city in favour of children for decades to come.
Ban Advertising Near Schools and Playgrounds
In 2006 the mayor of São Paulo banned all outdoor advertising. Fifteen thousand billboards were taken down, store signs were shrunk, ads were taken off buses and leafleting was forbidden. Nearly $8 million in fines helped enforce the ban. When first proposed it was met with incredulity but eight years later it is still in place, and São Paulo is not alone – Auckland, Chennai, Vermont, Maine, Hawaii and Alaska all have restrictions or bans. Paris reduced its advertising by 30 per cent and prohibited it entirely within fifty metres of a school gate.34 Grenoble has recently decided not to renew its contracts for advertising displays around the city.35
Advertising is so ubiquitous in London that it can be hard to imagine the city without it. More importantly, why would we? São Paulo billed their ban as an effort to clean up a cluttered and messy cityscape and London would benefit from this too, but there is a more important reason.
As Neal Lawson has written, ‘Adverts are not there to inform but to sell one thing: unhappiness. They work because they make us dissatisfied with what we’ve got or what we look like. They make us want the next new thing, until of course the next new thing comes along.’
Their impact on children is widely acknowledged, with restrictions in place on advertising manifestly unhealthy products like alcohol and tobacco. But even adverts for seemingly harmless products exert the pernicious effect that Neal described. By marking out those who can and cannot afford the latest trainers, advertising turns inequalities of income and wealth into stark markers of social status.
Whatever we think of this in adults it is surely unjust that children are judged by other children according to what their parents can afford. Even a small step to lessen the influence of our acquisitive culture on London’s children would bind us together from a young age. As a first step, the mayor could agree with London councils to ban all advertising near to and within schools, as has been done in Paris.
Children will be exposed to adverts on television and the internet and in the rest of the city but this measure would send a message and set a trend; our children deserve to live in communities unsullied as far as possible by the inequality for which they bear no responsibility.
(2) For Every Child: Experience of All London Has to Offer
London Sundays
Who first thought of covering themselves in silver foil, standing very still, and then moving just a little bit? And what made them think of it?
Two
