Children as urbanites : mapping the affordances and behavior settings of urban environments for Finnish and Japanese children

Loading...
Thumbnail Image

Access rights

openAccess
publishedVersion

URL

Journal Title

Journal ISSN

Volume Title

A1 Alkuperäisartikkeli tieteellisessä aikakauslehdessä

Date

Major/Subject

Mcode

Degree programme

Language

en

Pages

14

Series

Children's Geographies: Advancing Interdisciplinary Understanding of Younger Peoples Lives, Volume 16, issue 3, pp. 319-332

Abstract

Increasingly, children are residing in urban environments, yet little is known about the urban affordances for children. A place-based approach was employed to map the urban experiences of over 1300 children residing in Helsinki (Finland) and in Tokyo (Japan) in terms of meaningful places (affordances), travel mode and accompaniment to these places. Shared affordances were considered behavior settings, and audited on-site by trained experts for their main function, land use, openness, and communality. Significant differences were found between countries for all affordance categories. Although differences in behavior settings were observed between countries, a number of patterns emerged: outdoor settings and those with shared communality were the most prevalent behavior settings, traffic settings were predominantly evaluated negatively and commercial and indoor settings most positively. Findings suggest that although the context is important, independent mobility and the possibility to actualize environmental affordances seem to be fundamental in both contexts as the key criteria for environmental child-friendliness.

Description

Other note

Citation

Kyttä, M, Oliver, M, Ikeda, E, Ahmadi, E, Omiya, I & Laatikainen, T 2018, 'Children as urbanites : mapping the affordances and behavior settings of urban environments for Finnish and Japanese children', Children's Geographies: Advancing Interdisciplinary Understanding of Younger Peoples Lives, vol. 16, no. 3, pp. 319-332. https://doi.org/10.1080/14733285.2018.1453923