It could be so simple if, with every decision, we asked ourselves: ‘Will this benefit children in the city?’ In cities, the population is generally younger than in rural areas, and yet the built environment is less suited to children. In certain neighbourhoods of Brussels, 30 per cent of residents are under the age of 18. So almost one in three can be described as a child. And yet their presence carries too little weight in policy-making. We must involve children and young people in shaping their living environment. We must ask them questions, listen to them, think and create together… but above all, we must embed them firmly in the mindset of policymakers.

A child-friendly city is a people-friendly city. Assessing the child-friendliness of interventions is a simple rule of thumb for checking planning principles and/or policy proposals. This is not just about the design of a school or a playground, a park or a youth centre, but about every single policy decision.