The Child in the City International Seminar’s (Antwerpen, Belgium on 20-21 May 2019) bringing together experts and policymakers from different relevant fields around a specific theme of the child-friendly city agenda. The Child in the City International Seminar are tailored to the specific needs of a city and therefore focused on one specific theme. 

The main theme of this international seminar is Children in the sustainable city. 

Children are constructed as both the future at risk and the future solution for sustainable living. Cities all over the world are developing policies to make the urban environment more sustainable. At the same time global initiatives to make cities more child-friendly are increasingly important. We think this is the strategic moment to integrate sustainability with child-friendliness. Building sustainable cities should not only offer technical innovations but has social, economic and ecological dimensions as well.

A broad definition of sustainability should include children in at least two ways. First by designing policies that incorporate children’s needs: making sustainable solutions accessible to children. And secondly by giving children a voice – through educational programs – in creating sustainable policies. The aim of this seminar is to bring together expertise from both the disciplines of sustainability and urban childhood. How can we connect those fields in a way that both strengthens sustainable cities and children’s position in cities?

Within the overall theme of the seminar we want to address the following six subthemes:

• Resilient public space: water and green

• Urban planning: renewal and densification

• Sustainable mobility

• Placemaking and co-creation

• Healthy public space

• Inclusion and participation of children and youth

Commons Lab Antwerp gave a walkshop together with the citizens collective ‘Veerkrachtig Sint-Andries‘, Habbekrats, City of Antwerp. Here are the slides: https://www.dropbox.com/s/v5cgbpzvog7qj7l/Children%20in%20sustainable%20city%202019.pdf?dl=0