Planning Communities for Thriving Children

Virtually everybody, both conservative and liberal, claims that they want to help children be healthy and successful, but many policies introduced by the new federal administration contradict those goals. For example, the USDOT is eliminating funding for non-auto modes, and by basing funding on birth and marriage rates encourages sprawled development. It may believe that expanding suburban highways will allow parents to drive home more quickly from work to spend more time with their kids, but it’s actually an ineffective strategy. To truly reduce parent’s travel time burdens families need homes in more compact multimodal communities with shorter commute durations and reduced chauffeuring burdens.

We need better guidance for improving children's health and economic outcomes. This is a timely issue. Current trends are dismal; during the last decade U.S. children's life expectancy and economic mobility have declined. New research described in my report, Local Policies for Children’s Health and Success explains why this is occurring and identifies community planning strategies that help children thrive. Let me share highlights.

Undesirable trends

Current tends in children’s health and economic mobility (the chance that children become more economically successful than their parents) are dismal. In 1980 the U.S. has similar life expectancies as peer countries but since 2010 it stopped increasing and during the Covid pandemic it declined more than other countries, as illustrated below.

Life Expectancy at Birth (Rakshit, McGough and Amin 2024)

The U.S. also has relatively poor economic outcomes, as illustrated below.

Economic Mobility: Portion of Children Who Earn Higher Incomes than Their Parents (Manduca, et al. 2021)

The U.S. Surgeon General’s recent report, Parents Under Pressure indicates that many parents experience severe financial, time and social stresses that threaten their mental health and caregiving abilities; about half of U.S. parents report feeling overwhelming stress most days, compared to 26% among other adults.

This and other evidence indicate that current practices are failing and new approaches are needed for children to succeed.

New research

New research sheds light on community design factors that affect children’s health and success, and identifies policies to better achieve related goals. Put simply, automobile dependency and sprawl are unhealthy and unfair for children. They do this by reducing physical activity and fitness, increasing crash risks and pollution, reducing non-drivers' independence, and driving up the cost of living. They also impose time costs on parents: residents of sprawled areas spend far more time travelling than in compact, central neighborhoods where services and activities are nearby, and parents in automobile-dependent areas must spent significant amounts of time chauffeuring children. Affluent families can bear these costs, but not low- and moderate-income families. This forces parents to work longer hours, spend less time with children, and have insufficient money left for activities that help children succeed. 

Automobile dependency and sprawl impose many insidious costs and risks that harm families. For example, because vehicle failures and crashes occasionally impose large and unexpected expenses, and residents have difficultly getting around without driving, sprawled areas have higher housing foreclosure rates, and because suburban youths have less access to jobs they tend to have less economic mobility than in more accessible and multimodal communities.

Described more positively, this research indicates that children tend to be healthier and more successful living in compact, multimodal neighborhoods where residents frequently walk and bicycle, drive less at lower speeds, have affordable housing and travel options, are integrated by income and culture, and have sufficient parks and greenspace. This research indicates that compared with sprawled communities residents in the 20% Smartest Growth communities typically:

• Drive 30-70% less and use non-auto modes 2-10 times more.
• Can save 10-40% on housing costs and 10-60% on transport costs.
• Have excellent access to services and activities, and spend 30-60% less time travelling.
• Have non-auto accessibility comparable to suburban motorists.
• Have 20% to 80% lower traffic casualty rates.
• Are significantly more physically active, have better health outcomes, and live two to four years longer.
• Reduce energy consumption and pollution emissions by 10% to 60%.
• Enjoy significantly greater economic opportunity and long-term prosperity.
• Have greater community cohesion and social integration.
• Are more economically productive, with greater average employment, incomes and innovation.

These findings contradict common assumptions. Many people believe that children are better off living in suburbs than cities. This justifies public policies that favor automobile-oriented sprawl over compact development. “It’s better for the kids,” proponents claim. Indeed, suburbs tend to have higher incomes, less crime, and better school performance than urban neighborhoods, but this reflects self-selection – the tendency of suburbs to exclude poorer households, which concentrates poverty and associated social problems in urban neighborhoods. This does not actually prove that suburbs are better for children overall. New data and analysis methods show that, all else being equal, children tend to be better off growing up in compact walkable neighborhoods. This is particularly beneficial for children in lower-income households, so policies that increase affordable housing in mixed-income urban neighborhoods are especially beneficial. 

What the new administration gets wrong

The Biden administration supported multimodal planning, compact development and demographic integration; the new administration is trying to reverse those efforts, criticizing them as "woke". The new administration claims that all of its transportation policies, programs and activities will be “based on sound economic principles and analysis supported by rigorous cost-benefit requirements and data-driven decisions." It will be up to practitioners to hold the agency to its word. For example, if the USDOT has goals to improve children's health and economic success, planners and policy analysts should provide evidence-based information on which policies support or contradict that those goals. 

This, of course, can be challenging, as discussed in my recent column, Good Planning Under Bad Leadership, but is not hopeless. Even if top administrators approach all issues ideologically, most practitioners I know support rational and fair decision-making. Practitioners can identify truly effective policies, and show that multimodal planning, transportation demand management and Smart Growth actually reflect the conservative principles that the new administration claims to reflect, as discussed in Progressive Planning in Ideologically Conservative Communities.  

Planning for healthy and successful children

This research indicates that the following community policies support children’s health and success:

• Multimodal planning and TDM. Apply a sustainable transportation hierarchy that prioritizes affordable, inclusive and resource-efficient modes in planning and funding. Establish complete streets policies so all roads accommodate all modes. Implement TDM incentives that encourage travellers to use the best option for each trip: active modes for local errands, public transit for travel on busy corridors, and driving when it is most cost effective, considering all impacts.

Sustainable Transportation Hierarchy (Action Net Zero)

• Reduce traffic speeds. Achieve safe traffic speeds, which are generally less than 20 mph (32 Km/hr) on local streets and less than 30 mph (48 km/hr) on urban arterials. Reduce and enforce speed limits. Implement traffic calming and complete streets policies.
• Apply Smart Growth development policies. Allow compact and mixed development, including missing middle and multifamily housing, in most neighborhoods. Strive for a Walk Score of at least 70. Develop affordable family-oriented housing, including social housing and lower-priced market housing, in multimodal areas where it is easy to get around without driving.
• Reform parking policies. Reduce or eliminate off-street parking minimums, encourage unbundling (parking rented separately from building space), and apply efficient parking management. Manage public parking for efficiency.
• Support local parks and greenspace. Establish and achieve targets for parks, recreational programs, public greenspace and tree cover. Ensure that most households are located within a 5-minute walk of parks and recreation facilities suitable for children and families.
• Support local services, particularly schools. Develop neighborhood shops, childcare, recreation programs and public schools.
• Support placemaking. Ensure that the public realm, including sidewalks, public parks and local commercial districts are accessible, attractive and safe. Reduce urban traffic speeds. Improve walkability. Support programs and activities that attract and engage neighbors.

Health and success for everybody

I can report from personal experience that children thrive growing up in a walkable urban neighborhood. I hope that other children can enjoy those benefits. Just as we prefer eating eggs laid by free-range chickens, parents should prefer raising children in a community that allows children to be free-range.

Imagine that you were a child or adolescent. Would you rather that governments build more highways and encourage more sprawled development where you must depend on parents to chauffeur you around, and your family often struggles financially, or would you prefer public policies that create compact, multimodal neighborhoods where you can travel independently to schools, and your parents spend less time and money on driving leaving more to devote to fun and educational activities?  

Children can be considered an indicator species: virtually everybody benefits from more affordable, accessible, cohesive community planning. The policies recommended here ensure that neighborhoods accommodate people of all ages, abilities, incomes and needs.  

For more information

Kristin N. Agnello (2020), Child in the City: Planning Communities for Children & Their Families, Plassurban.

Child in the City works to support child-friendly cities. 

Reid Ewing, et al. (2016), “Does Urban Sprawl Hold Down Upward Mobility?” Landscape and Urban Planning, Vol. 148.

Tim Gill (2023), Urban Playground, Rethinking Childhood. Also see, “Building Cities Fit for Children”.

Helen Shwe Hadani, et al. (2021), Understanding Child-Friendly Urban Design: A Framework to Measure Playful Learning Landscapes Outcomes, Brookings.

Todd Litman (2024), Local Policies for Children’s Health and Success, Victoria Transport Policy Institute.

NACTO (2020), Designing Streets for Kids, National Association of City Transportation Officials.

James F. Sallis, et al. (2016), “Physical Activity in Relation to Urban Environments in 14 Cities Worldwide: A Cross-Sectional Study,” The Lancet, Vol. 387, No. 10034, pp. 2207–2217.  

SfQL (2024), The Public Pound, Transport for Quality of Life, for Living Streets.

Lenore Skenazy (2024), Free Range Kids.

Surgeon General (2024), Parents Under Pressure: The U.S. Surgeon General Advisory on the Mental Health and Well-Being of Parents, U.S. Surgeon General.