The child friendly cities initiative in Italy

Abstract

This paper reviews the strengths and limitations of different child friendly cities initiatives in Italy and the many measures by national, regional and local governments to support them. These measures include a new law, a national plan of action, more funds and an award available to the cities that achieve the most. City initiatives have sought to respond to the constraints that industrialization and urbanization have placed on children’s safe mobility, use of city space and participation. Many of the initiatives described have promoted children’s participation in city governance, often through children’s councils that developed proposals for city governments. Also described are special provisions by municipal authorities to ensure more attention to children’s issues, many of them involving environmental improvements that benefit children (for example, making children’s routes between home and school safer, expanding parks, creating bicycle tracks). The paper also describes children’s assessment of impacts, also their critical views of administrators who failed to keep their promises and teachers who were too controlling in participatory projects.