Growing up in dense cities: Understanding the impact of urban density on children's health and wellbeing

Start year: 2025

Summary: This project aims to investigate how urban density impacts children's health, well-being, and inclusion. As global urbanisation accelerates, compact city designs are increasingly adopted to accommodate growing populations. However, these designs often pose significant risks to children because of reduced green spaces and limited opportunities for independent mobility amongst others. Children comprises 27% of the global population, yet very little research examine how various aspects of urban density (such as building height and green space availability) impact their physical and mental health, social and cognitive development and right to play (UNCRC). This project will build on the collaboration of team members over the past two years (WUN 2022 application), during which literature reviews and comparative studies have been initiated, informing a subsequent co-supervised summer studentship (funded by the University of Auckland), and a manuscript in review with the journal Health and Place (a Q1 journal with impact factor of 4.078) titled "Urban Density and Child Health and Well-being: A Scoping Review of the Literature," co-authored by this project team. Accordingly, this proposed WUN project will include a next set of literature reviews, GIS analysis, and a pilot study of Belo Horizonte (Brazil) to develop a comprehensive "Designing densely for Children Toolkit”. The geographic and cultural distribution of team members will inform this toolkit and analysis of density impacts, drawing on challenges and lessons from the various local contexts. This toolkit will provide urban planners and policymakers with evidence-based guidelines to create healthier, more child-friendly and inclusive urban environments, by showcasing information and case studies and contexts applicable to density and children’s health.