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Smart City Governance and Children’s Agency: An Assessment of the Green Infrastructure Impact on Children’s Activities in Cagliari (Italy) with the Tool “Opportunities for Children in Urban Spaces (OCUS)”

Author

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  • Chiara Garau

    (Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering and Architecture, University of Cagliari, Cagliari 09123, Italy)

  • Alfonso Annunziata

    (Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering and Architecture, University of Cagliari, Cagliari 09123, Italy)

Abstract

The increases in urbanization, pollution, resource depletion, and climate change underline the need for urban planning policies that incorporate blue–green infrastructure (BGI) and ecosystem services. This paper proposes a framework for assessing BGI’s effect on children’s outdoor activities. This effect, called meaningful usefulness, is a central issue due to the influence of experiences with nature on children’s development and the global trend of concentration of children in urban areas. Based on the concept of affordance, the methodology formalizes meaningful usefulness in terms of an index of usefulness of individual settings (I UIS ) and a synthetic index of usefulness of BGI in a specific area (I SGI ). These are determined via an audit protocol, Opportunities for Children in Urban Spaces (OCUS), which incorporates a set of indicators measuring micro-scale properties of individual places and contextual macro-scale factors. The methodology is applied to BGI components in Cagliari, Sardinia, Italy, which was selected for its superior density of urban green spaces. The application of the OCUS tool confirms its usefulness for investigating functional affordances incorporated into the trans-scalar structures of BGIs. The analytic protocol further contributes to the implementation of urban planning strategies within the smart city paradigm.

Suggested Citation

  • Chiara Garau & Alfonso Annunziata, 2019. "Smart City Governance and Children’s Agency: An Assessment of the Green Infrastructure Impact on Children’s Activities in Cagliari (Italy) with the Tool “Opportunities for Children in Urban Spaces (OC," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(18), pages 1-24, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:11:y:2019:i:18:p:4848-:d:264370
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Emanuela Abis & Chiara Garau, 2016. "An Assessment of the Effectiveness of Strategic Spatial Planning: A Study of Sardinian Municipalities," European Planning Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 24(1), pages 139-162, January.
    2. Inger Lerstrup & Cecil Konijnendijk van den Bosch, 2017. "Affordances of outdoor settings for children in preschool: revisiting heft’s functional taxonomy," Landscape Research, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 42(1), pages 47-62, January.
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    5. Mona Jabbari & Fernando Fonseca & Rui Ramos, 2018. "Combining multi-criteria and space syntax analysis to assess a pedestrian network: the case of Oporto," Journal of Urban Design, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 23(1), pages 23-41, January.
    6. Chiara Garau & Valentina Maria Pavan, 2018. "Evaluating Urban Quality: Indicators and Assessment Tools for Smart Sustainable Cities," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(3), pages 1-18, February.
    7. Vogdrup-Schmidt, Mathias & Strange, Niels & Olsen, Søren B. & Thorsen, Bo Jellesmark, 2017. "Trade-off analysis of ecosystem service provision in nature networks," Ecosystem Services, Elsevier, vol. 23(C), pages 165-173.
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    9. repec:mpr:mprres:4954 is not listed on IDEAS
    10. Ignazio Cannas & Sabrina Lai & Federica Leone & Corrado Zoppi, 2018. "Green Infrastructure and Ecological Corridors: A Regional Study Concerning Sardinia," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(4), pages 1-21, April.
    11. Chiara Garau & Alfonso Annunziata & Mauro Coni, 2018. "A Methodological Framework for Assessing Practicability of the Urban Space: The Survey on Conditions of Practicable Environments (SCOPE) Procedure Applied in the Case Study of Cagliari (Italy)," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(11), pages 1-23, November.
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    Cited by:

    1. Chiara Garau & Alfonso Annunziata, 2020. "Supporting Children’s Independent Activities in Smart and Playable Public Places," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(20), pages 1-23, October.
    2. Shengchen Yin & Dena Kasraian & Pieter van Wesemael, 2022. "Children and Urban Green Infrastructure in the Digital Age: A Systematic Literature Review," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(10), pages 1-18, May.
    3. Xue Meng & Mohan Wang, 2022. "Comparative Review of Environmental Audit Tools for Public Open Spaces from the Perspective of Children’s Activity," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(20), pages 1-16, October.
    4. Chiara Garau & Alfonso Annunziata & Claudia Yamu, 2020. "The Multi-Method Tool ‘PAST’ for Evaluating Cultural Routes in Historical Cities: Evidence from Cagliari, Italy," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(14), pages 1-19, July.
    5. Antoine Clarinval & Anthony Simonofski & Julie Henry & Benoît Vanderose & Bruno Dumas, 2023. "Introducing the Smart City to Children: Lessons Learned from Hands-On Workshops in Classes," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(3), pages 1-22, January.

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