The Necessity of Urban Green Space for Children's Optimal Development: A Discussion Paper by Suchitra Sugar (review)

Abstract

Book Review: The Necessity of Urban Green Space for Children’s Optimal… 180 The Necessity of Urban Green Space for Children’s Optimal Development: A Discussion Paper Suchitra Sugar (2021) New York: UNICEF, 44 pages Available as a free download at https://www.unicef.org/documents/necessityurban -green-space-childrens-optimal-development A new discussion paper from UNICEF, The Necessity of Urban Green Space for Children’s Optimal Development, signals UNICEF’s attention to a large and rapidly growing body of research on the importance of access to safe green spaces for people’s health and happiness. The paper calls on national, state and local governments and organizations of civil society to review how they are implementing the Convention on the Rights of the Child in order to include promoting access to nature for all children, simultaneously achieving multiple economic, health and environmental benefits. In addition to reducing costs for public health, green infrastructure in cities reduces urban heat, sequesters carbon, improves air quality, and provides flood protection and a refuge for biodiversity. The paper covers its topics concisely, in an attractive format that includes vivid images of children around the world enjoying green spaces of different kinds. In 1989, when the United Nations General Assembly adopted the Convention on the Rights of the Child, the number of studies that demonstrated that people need greenery and green spaces near them for their health and wellbeing could be counted on one hand, and none of these pioneering studies involved children. In the 1990s, a cluster of new studies appeared. Since 2000, research on the benefits of including nature in the places where people live, work and play has become a robust field of study, with its own textbook (van den Bosch & Bird, 2018), conferences that convene people from across the globe, and many reviews of this burgeoning research, including studies involving newborns, early childhood, middle childhood, and adolescence. The Necessity of Urban Green Space for Children’s Optimal Development assembles a compelling case that it is time to integrate the implications of this research into urban policies and programs. With this paper, UNICEF takes a step in this direction; at the same time, it provides a substantial resource that can be used by any organization that works to increase young people’s wellbeing or to increase green land surface in cities. The author, Suchitra Sugar, presents findings related to children, nature and health through concise research summaries, a table, and extensive citations. She begins with benefits for newborns, who are more likely to be born with a healthy weight when their mothers have greenery around their homes and nearby green spaces that they can visit. She proceeds through early childhood, middle childhood and adolescence, summarizing benefits for physical, mental and social development, as well as the development of concern and care for nature. When children have nature nearby, physical benefits include more physical activity and better balance and motor coordination. Greenery around schools and homes is associated with better cognitive development in terms of improved concentration, attention, working Book Review: The Necessity of Urban Green Space for Children’s Optimal… 181 memory, and academic performance. Time in nature reduces hyperactivity, and access to nearby nature is associated with less stress, fewer social and behavioral problems, and lower rates of depression and other psychiatric disorders. Because children in high-income families are more likely to have greenery around their homes and well-maintained parks nearby, Sugar only cites correlational studies that were conducted in low-income neighborhoods or that controlled for family income. She also draws on experimental, quasi-experimental and observational studies. She observes that most research has been carried out in Western countries but introduces a number of studies from East Asia and the Global South. She points out that some studies measure physiological changes that occur while in nature, including reduced levels of stress hormones and blood pressure; these are involuntary biological reactions that are likely to be consistent in children everywhere. After this review, Sugar highlights the implications of these findings for local communities, institutions like schools and child-care centers, municipal governments, national governments, and organizations like UNICEF that respond to humanitarian crises. To ground her recommendations in...