Community Forum: Creating a Child Friendly Community Lecture by Dr. Roger A. Hart

Dr. Roger A. Hart, who is the director of the Center for Human Environments and the Children's Environments Research Group at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, talks about his vision of child friendly communities. He explains the advantages of and ways of providing children with rights in their communities, including decision making, design, and governance roles. He describes the positive effects around the world as a result of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, which was not ratified by the United States because the convention is seen as contrary to parents' rights to raise their children. He explains the erosion of children's independent mobility, and the bureaucracy of playgrounds and the privatization of play in the United States and other parts of the industrial world. He provides examples of other countries' strategies for giving the city back to children and how child friendly communities affect children. He also talks about playworkers (a new profession in the United States) liberate play, ways to bring democracy to classrooms, and ways to work with children to bring their communities back to them. Question and answer session follows lecture. Sharon Reinckens provides an introduction to the lecture and notes the lecture is part of the Community Issues Program, which is part of the 40th Anniversary Exhibition titled East of the River: Continuity and Change. Phyllis Brunson of the Center for the Study of Social Policy briefly talks about strategies for engaging communities and introduces Dr. Hart.

Lecture. Part of the ACM Community Issues Series, which is part of the 40th Anniversary Exhibition titled East of the River: Continuity and Change. AV005075, AV005084, AV005085: audio only. Dated 20080414.