Planning, maps, and children's lives: A cautionary tale

Planners are increasingly seeing children's maps as an appropriate consultation and participation method for enabling children's knowledge, views and experiences to be included in planning. A study was undertaken with 163 children aged nine to eleven in Dunedin, New Zealand, to understand children's relationships to their neighbourhood and the wider city. Children in the interview evidenced rich connections with their home environment and local community, but often did not produce “good” maps. Maps are useful as a tool for talking with children about their lives but, on their own, can give planners only limited insights into children's “real world” environmental cognition and community connection.