Sweden has made a legal commitment to the UN’s Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) and, as such, should ensure children’s rights in urban planning. A vital aspect of a child-friendly city is access to urban green space. However, children’s access to green spaces is threatened by challenges in implementing the CRC in practice; children’s limited opportunities to explore public space; and the general trend of decreasing green spaces in cities. The purpose of this study is threefold: to examine Malmö’s urban planning strategies and their effectiveness in ensuring children’s access to green spaces; to analyse the current state of spatial accessibility; and to identify factors contributing to the perceived child-friendliness of green spaces. A mixed methods approach of content analysis, spatial analysis, observations and in-situ interviews with parents is used to examine children’s access to urban green spaces through various angles. This is further explored through the use of concepts related to spatial justice, children’s right to the city and attributes of a child friendly city. The thesis found ambiguity in the support from Malmö’s plans and strategies related to children’s access to green space and promotion of the child perspective. There seems to be an ambition to work with the child perspective, but challenges in translating this ambition into clear strategies and methods for including children in decisions beyond those relating to schools and kindergartens. Additionally, children were merely implicitly mentioned in relation to green space specifically, which lowers the support for children’s specific access to these spaces. The spatial analysis displayed that neighbourhoods in Malmö have access to some green space, but that the amount of green space differs. The amount of green space was higher in neighbourhoods with a high socioeconomic status and lower in child-dense neighbourhoods, which indicates spatial inequality and displays that children’s access to green space might differ depending on where they live. The perceived child-friendliness of the observed green spaces was largely dependent on the presence of the parents or other trustworthy adults. Additionally, the playground was central in green space usage and perceptions of child-friendliness. Lastly, there was a widespread fear among parents of letting the children visit the green spaces independently. This was related to traffic safety and revealed a duality related to ‘other people’ - strangers were seen as potential threats to their children’s safety, while certain strangers, especially other parents, were seen as increasing the safety of the green space.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:mau-68255 |
| Date | January 2024 |
| Creators | Hällqvist, Klara |
| Publisher | Malmö universitet, Institutionen för Urbana Studier (US) |
| Source Sets | DiVA Archive at Upsalla University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Student thesis, info:eu-repo/semantics/bachelorThesis, text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
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