
Smart Policies for a Child-Friendly City
Chapter from the book:
Çalışkan Ercan,
S.
(ed.)
2025.
Current Urban, Environmental and Local Government Policies and Practices.
Synopsis
In today's world, where urbanization has accelerated and the population of many large cities exceeds the population of small countries, the biggest problem for the cities is to ensure the continuation of urban life with sustainable policies for all stakeholders. Children are a large category neglected by these policies, which are generally shaped in line with the wishes, needs and expectations of adults. Since the United Nations’ mentioned about child-friendly cities and initiated the Child-Friendly Cities Attempt, many countries have begun to include child-friendly cities in their different dimensions in their policies and become aware of this broad category. Child-friendly cities are the cities where children can live freely in a safe environment, support their mental development, and respect their right to live and grow up and their ideas.Smart cities, on the other hand, are cities that cooperate with their citizens and offer innovative solutions with the support of technology to solve some difficulties in the city or make life easier. Citizens are the basic component of a smart city, children are also in it. Smart city technologies have a significant potential to ensure the formation and sustainability of a child-friendly city and to do this by focusing on the expectations of children as a stakeholder of the city. Children can also make important contributions to the planning of the smart city considered they are going to live in there. With the help of technology, children's expectations from the city they live in can be learned, their participation in city management can be ensured, cities can be made safer for children, or technics that will ensure the physical and cognitive development of children can be implemented.Based on this perspective, the study aims to discuss at what point a child-friendly city and a smart city can be combined and to reveal the opportunities that a smart city can offer to children.