Creating Child-Friendly Environments

The aim of the article is to discuss the literature on children's participation and to analyse what planning theorists, educators and child researchers can learn from the comparison of case studies on children's involvement in neighbourhood improvement in Finland, Switzerland and France. The case studies indicate that the creation of child-friendly environments with young people means a shift towards more ecological and socially supportive settings with opportunities for the involvement of different groups. There is, however, a huge gap between the know-how of children and the organizational and political capacity of local authorities to respond in terms of appropriate environmental arrangements.