Urban Children's Access to their Neighborhood

Abstract

One New York City neighborhood was investigated to determine changes in its children's use of local public space between 1915 and 1976. Twenty-nine adults were interviewed on their experiences there as children. In addition, such archival sources as U.S. census reports were consulted for demographic changes. The interviews were content analyzed to detect changes over time in various aspects of children's activities. Substantial changes were detected in (a) the age at which children were first allowed outdoors without supervision, (b) the number and quality of settings visited, (c) the number and nature of environmental obstacles, (d) the number and nature of parent-imposed restrictions, and (e) the number of professionally supervised activities undertaken. It was found that both the degree to which the neighborhood environment was supportive of children's play and children's access to their neighborhood have declined substantially since the 1940s.

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Aronson, S. H. (1984). New York 1880-1914: Autobiographical accounts. In V. Boggs , G. Handel , & S. Fava (Eds.), The apple sliced. South Hadley, MA: Bergin & Garvey.

Barker, R. G. , & Wright, H. F. (1955). Midwest and its children. New York: Harper & Row.

Bernard, J. (1939). The neighborhood behavior of school children in relation to age and socioeconomic status. American Sociological Review, 4, 652-662.

Bradburn, N. M. , Rips, L. J. , & Shevell, S. K. (1987, April). Answering autobiographical questions: The impact of memory and inference on surveys. Science, pp. 157-161.

Carr, S. , & Lynch, K. (1968). Where learning happens. Daedalus, 97, 1277-1291.

Handel, G. (1984). A children's New York: Boys at play in Yorkville. In V. Boggs , G. Handel , & S. Fava (Eds.), The apple sliced. South Hadley, MA: Bergin & Garvey.

Hart, R. (1979). Children's experience of place. New York: Irvington.

Hart R. (1986). The changing city of childhood. New York: The City College Workshop Center.

Hymowitz, C. (1988, September 20). For many kids, playtime isn't free time. Wall Street Journal.

10.

Langness, L. L. (1965). The life history in anthropological science. New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston.

11.

Lukashok, A. K. , & Lynch, K. (1956). Some childhood memories of the city. Journal of the American Institute of Planners, 22(3), 142-152.

12.

Lynch, K. (Ed.) (1979). Growing up in cities. Cambridge: MIT Press.

13.

Maurer, R. , & Baxter, J. (1972). Images of the neighborhood and city among Black-, Anglo-, and Mexican-American children. Environment and Behavior, 4, 352-388.

14.

Mills, C. W. (1959). The sociological imagination. London: Oxford University Press.

15.

Moore, R. C. (1985). Childhood's domain. London: Croom Helm.

16.

Parr, A. E. (1969). Lessons of an urban childhood. The American Montessori Society Bulletin, 7, 4.

17.

Rainwater, L. (1970). Behind ghetto walls. Chicago: Adeline.

18.

Schactel, E. (1959). Metamorphosis. New York: Basic Books.

19.

Southworth, M. (1969). An urban service forchildren. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge.

20.

Stone (1987, February 27). Trying to raise kids in the city. New York.

21.

van Vliet, W. (1983). Exploring the fourth environment. Environment and Behavior, 15, 567-588.

22.

Wright, H. F. (1967). Recording and analyzing child behavior. New York: Harper & Row.