“I want to feel safe and comfortable biking my toddler to an affordable, quality child care.”

Idea in Brief

Capita Senior Fellow, architect and urban designer, Ankita Chachra, shares her reflections on her journey to focus on the wellbeing of young children and families in the climate change era.
She argues that to create climate-adaptive cities for young children, we need more than financial investment. We need bold leadership and a concerted intersectoral collaboration to change the built environment.
The potential to adapt the built environment with solutions that address both – the needs of young children and climate mitigation – is limitless.

By Ankita Chachra

Early Summer in the Hague

On 18 July 2022, the curtains in our old-Dutch-style apartment had been drawn shut since morning. I used all the cooling tricks I had learned growing up in New Delhi (notorious for its summer heat) and internet suggestions. We placed a bowl of ice in front of a table fan we purchased earlier that day in anticipation of the heat. I created another makeshift cooler by placing a wet sheet in front of our open windows. Yet, it was over 86 F (30 C) inside our living room. My partner and I sat there trying to keep our newborn, who was 2.5 months old, as cool as possible. It was the hottest summer recorded in Europe since 1900, and it dawned upon us that this might be the coolest one for our son in the years to come.

What brings me here?

Climate change is not something we may face in the future. It is happening now. It is the present - this is the climate change era. That day as I exchanged messages with other parents to learn how they were keeping their babies cool, I knew that no one, irrespective of their socio-economic status, was exempt. I had been connecting the dots in my work on cities and young children with climate action. However, in that brief moment, while spraying my newborn with a cool water mist, I realized that no matter how actively we focus on climate adaptation and mitigation, it still may not be enough. Like all other children in their early years, my child will face the most significant impact and repercussions of society's fragmented efforts to address the climate crises. With an urgent, selfish, and personal interest in securing a safe future for my child and his future friends, I decided to commit myself to climate action at the intersection of early years and the built environment.

What will it take?

Trained as an architect and an urban designer, I found my passion for prioritizing the needs of children and caregivers while leading the Streets for Kids Program and developing the Designing Streets for Kids Guide at Global Designing Cities Initiative (GDCI). I recently expanded my knowledge of early childhood policy at the Bernard Van Leer Foundation and provided expertise to the Urban95 program. Having worked with cities like Sao Paulo, Mumbai, Tel Aviv, and Istanbul and partnering with stakeholders from sectors including city planning, transportation, public health, education, and social services, I have learned that if we are to make progress toward creating climate-adaptive cities for young children, we need more than a financial investment. We need bold leadership and a concerted intersectoral collaboration to change the built environment. We need multiple solutions and sectors both working towards changing the status quo. We need to adapt and mitigate simultaneously.

A simple wish

I was recently talking to a past colleague about navigating a city as a young parent while making climate-conscious decisions. Even adults predisposed not to own cars, those who prefer walking, biking, or using public transport, resign to frequent use of a private vehicle once they become a parent. Cities frequently prioritize building and maintaining automobile infrastructure rather than providing viable walking, biking, or public transit options, and driving becomes the default. We both exchanged a simple wish, far from reality in most cities worldwide – "I want to feel safe and comfortable biking my toddler to an affordable, quality child care." This hopeful statement perfectly summarized an action to prioritize the wellbeing of young children in climate change mitigation through the built environment. So, what will it take to create that safe bike lane that connects residential neighborhoods to child-focused facilities?

Bold leadership and breaking silos

In an ideal scenario, a city's Mayor would need to take bold action to invest in both child care and bike lane infrastructure while being open to trade space for private cars, reduce speed limits, and ban high-emission vehicles near facilities for children. It would involve a handful of city agencies coordinating and collaborating – from financing, planning, transportation, design, and construction to maintenance and sanitation. Implementers must engage the community and work with stakeholders, including facilities for children, the education department, health, social services, and human resources. To ensure affordability and quality, the administration would need a solid plan to fund and support access to child care while building a robust workforce.

This and more is possible but only if different sectors are willing to work together under a united vision to build a safe future for the youngest years. Investing in cycling is one example, but the potential to adapt the built environment with solutions that address both – the needs of young children and climate mitigation – is limitless. There are practical and achievable solutions available, for example, bringing blue and green yards to facilities for children, monitoring air quality to reduce vehicular use around these facilities, planting trees and greenery in public spaces and creating places for adults and young children, retrofitting buildings to be passively cooled, or improving public transportation routes and stations frequently used by parents and kids.

As the summers get warmer each year and extreme climate events become regular, our best chance to succeed at equitable climate adaptation and mitigation requires all hands on deck under a visionary captain who prioritizes the needs of the stakeholders who stand to face the worst– children in their earliest years.

Connecting cities, young children and climate action