By James Bonner, Deirdre Harrington, Marco te Brömmelstroet & Jonne Silonsaari
Every year the Netherlands celebrates the ‘Buitenspeeldag’, the national day of outdoor play, following the example of the UN International Day of Play. In this post, James Bonner and Deirdre Harrington from the University of Strathclyde (Glasgow, Scotland) and Marco te Brömmelstroet and Jonne Silonsaari from the UCI reflect on the concept of play and how it connects to their ongoing work and projects.
Horizon Europe funded Just Streets aims to revolutionise public spaces and streets by prioritising just and active mobility, and includes Amsterdam as one of eleven pilot cities involved. Meanwhile, Harrington is the Principal Investigator for an evaluation of “Play Streets” in Scotland funded by the Royal Society of Edinburgh, with ambitions to develop evidence and to draft guidance and a Scotland-based case study for local authorities on how to support the start up, and implementation of, Play Streets in Scotland.
National Play Days, like many national or international ‘days of’ (think ‘Earth Day’ or ‘International Day of Happiness’) are a celebration, or promotion, of their cause – seeking to raise awareness of the issues they seek to champion or highlight. However, such days might also problematically limit attention of topics to distinct days, rather than recognising that they are causes that are fundamental to every day – not just one per year. If a certain day in in June is a ‘Play Day’, does that mean there is ‘no play’ on the other 364 days? Is no care given for the Earth on days that are not Earth Day?
An important intersectoral questions is how cycling and other forms of mobility that allow children’s autonomous mobility, connect to notions of play. For instance, despite the high levels of cycling in the Netherlands, the country has experienced a decrease in outdoor play. Te Brömmelstoet, with urban placemaker and ex-professional cyclist Frank Kwanten, raise this point in their article in Netherlands Dagblad, highlighting decreases in Dutch children playing outside, with the attendant mental and physical health impacts. While Scotland’s most recent Report Card on Physical Activity in 2021 found insufficient data to identify levels of active play in the country, it highlights significant levels of sedentary behaviour amongst children, and note a lowly grade of ‘D-’ in a previous iteration of the report for levels of active play.
These comparisons raise interesting questions, and ones that are worth investigating. Are there specific aspects of outdoor play and activity that have decreased in the Netherlands and Scotland over time? How do the two countries compare? What is the relationship to levels of cycling and children’s autonomous mobility more generally? What are the reasons for these shifts, and can we learn from each other about the various causes and reasons – and potential ways to reverse these trends?
Both the Just Streets and Play Streets projects seek to bring attention to the inequalities in our streets. Inequalities in terms of how space is attributed (or claimed), the activities that take place, and who has come to dominate those spaces. Indeed, the reconfiguration of streets to meet the needs of users of private motor vehicles is a common experience, and a contemporary challenge that affects communities and places around the world. Different contexts might be at different stages regarding issues of justice (and it is important to recognise the contextual conditions that affect different places), yet it is notable the role cycling and other forms of active mobility have in both the Playing Out and Just Streets projects, and which are linked to wider concepts of play.
One way to look at these phenomena, is the notion of ‘framing’ – the way we think and talk about transport and active mobility, and how that affects the way spaces are formed and remade over time. Thinking about framing raises key questions about who, and what, our spaces are designed for, and what are the stories (or narratives) that we hear, or hold, about what our streets should be for. Do we think of streets and places primarily in terms of serving the needs of vehicles and the movement of goods? Or, rather, are they places for people and play? How have they changed over time? Whose story, or voice, carries most weight in the decisions about what streets are for, and which voices are ignored? What will the streets of our future be like?
When it comes to the Playing Out movement there have been some initial attempts to implement Play Streets in Glasgow and Inverness. Recent local press articles on Play Streets in Inverness frame the ambition and need for these types of initiatives. In Glasgow, reports highlight the roads that will be ‘closed’ for children to play (whereas, conversely, aren’t the streets really being ‘opened’ for play?). Responses on social media to such interventions can be useful to gather some of the different perspectives and priorities from those commenting, where we see a mixture of support and dissent. Notably, these will primarily be the voices of adults.
However, if we want streets that are not dominated by motor vehicles and where inequalities are reduced, then the voices of those less represented are needed. This means both listening to and co-developing, with children about what their streets should be like. Toolkits and resources are available to assist with planning and implementing playful streets and, using Glasgow as an example, involving children and young people in planning for urban play. We would anticipate a different reaction from children to the local news articles about opening up their neighbourhood streets for play 365 days a year. This stands in contrast to the disgruntled voice of adults if unrestricted access to space for their car was to be limited.
The research visit of Bonner and Harrington was part of their Rhins to the Rhine project that deals with long distance cycling. On the issues of play, Bonner has written on some of these issues including ‘Play in everyday life’, and in reflections from his home city of Glasgow on possibilities for change. Respectively Silonsaari and te Brömmelstroet write, with others, in The Conversation on the ‘Return of the child-friendly city’. See also te Brömmelstroet’s papers discuss culturally maladaptive transport discourses and on reducing road danger.
