Children’s sense of place : What places and aspects are important to children in the process of generating a sense of place?

Sammanfattning: A city user that is often neglected in these fast urban transitions is the children. Even if Swedish planning offices aim to increase the focus on children, they are hindered by a lack of knowledge, leading to adult-created places not rooted in children's actual needs. Places actually important to children are rarely justified and children are forced into specific settings that are small islands in an otherwise adult-oriented world. To be able to build a child-friendly city, planners need first to understand children’s sense of place. Nonetheless, most research done on the topic is reviewing sense of place as generated between adults and their environment, neglecting sense of place as a phenomenon also between environment and child. The lack of insight into children’s sense of place and the tangible absence of justification for children’s places in urban planning highlights the need for further research. From a phenomenological critical realism approach, the aim of this study was to contribute to the theoretical discussion of sense of place from the perspective of children and to give guidance to the planning practice. Through interviews and observations with children between 3-7 years old living in two different neighbourhoods, the result implied that children develop a sense of place through aspects like physical setting, community, memories, knowledge and through meaningful functions created with fantasy. Furthermore, places important to children seem to often be places where they were allowed to experience independently without being overprotected by parents. Common to the valued places was also that they offered physical, social as well as psychological challenges. They are often part of open and flexible spaces allowing children to use their fantasy, imagination and to build their own places. The guidance to the planning practice was divided into five guiding points; Rethink, Involve & Include, Make accessible, Accept, and Create.