In this episode, I connect with Tim Gill, author of the book, Urban Playground: How Child-Friendly Planning and Design Can Save Cities for a discussion about this radical yet simple planning and design concept, and we discuss why this needs to happen and how to go about doing it.

Link to the video of this episode and to the landing page for photos

What if most of our public realm was a collection of child-friendly spaces such that the urban fabric was essentially a "playground", a platform for childhood development with plenty of room to roam and explore?

This may sound crazy, but right now, in some countries, safe and inviting "All Ages & Abilities" environments encourage and support free-range kids and I would propose free-range older adults unencumbered by automobiles as well. Because, as the saying goes. If works for an 8-year-old it works for an 80-year-old.

In this episode, I talk with Tim Gill, author of the book Urban Playground: How Child-Friendly Planning and Design Can Save Cities about this radical yet simple planning and design concept.

Helpful Links (may include affiliate links to help me support the channel and podcast)
- Urban Playground book
- No Fear book
- Tim's website
- Our Streets, Our Journeys video
- Growing Up Boulder
- The Death and Life of Great American Cities by Jane Jacobs
- Sustrans

My Favorite Stoic Philosophy Books:
- The Daily Stoic by Ryan Holiday
- The Lives of the Stoics by Ryan Holiday
- Courage is Calling by Ryan Holiday

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Credits:

All video and audio production by John Simmerman

Music:

Various mixes also by John Simmerman

Resources used during the production of this episode:

- My awesome recording platform is Ecamm

- Adobe Creative Cloud Suite

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Background:

Hi Everyone, my name is John Simmerman.

I’m a health promotion professional with over 30 years of experience and my area of concentration has evolved into a specialization of how the built environment influences human behavior related to active living and especially active mobility.

In 2012 I launched the non-profit Advocates for Healthy Communities as an effort to help promote and create healthy, active places.

Since that time, I've been exploring, documenting, and profiling established, emerging, and aspiring Active Towns wherever they might be, in order to produce high-quality multimedia content to help inspire the creation of more safe and inviting, environments that promote a "Culture of Activity" for "All Ages & Abilities."

My Active Towns suite of channels feature my original video and audio content and reflections, including a selection of podcast episodes and short films profiling the positive and inspiring efforts happening around the world as I am able to experience and document them.

Thanks for tuning in; I hope you have found this content helpful.

Creative Commons License: Attributions, Non-Commercial, No Derivatives, 2022

Advocates for Healthy Communities, Inc. is a nonprofit 501c3 organization (EIN 45-3802508) dedicated to helping communities create a Culture of Activity. To donate, click here.