CHILDREN FRIENDLY CITY

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One of my concern and also obsession for city development in Indonesia is to create a children friendly city. A city where children can play outside for free. A city with public places which are safe, green and accomodative to children's needs. This should become a policy for city development. We all talk about sustainable city and environment, and a children friendly city should be included. If you are a father or a mother, I am sure you would share my concern. Where will I bring my children this afternoon? A playground in McDonalds? A game centre in a mall?



For something good, I don't mind to learn from other country like Holland. At least where I live, it is part of policy to provide a playground every 500 meters. So there are several relatively small playgrounds and one relatively big playground plus a water pool. As far as I know, the same policy of creating children friendly places are common in Holland.





I have to say that this is the most logic policy but sometimes I wonder why all playgrounds dissapeared from cities in Indonesia. Where do the children suppose to play during their free time? How many places they can go for free? I grew up in Bandung and then I could still play in a playground in Gandapura street or catching frogs in paddie fields around Brigjen Katamso street. Now my daughter went to McDonalds, malls or even paid 90 thousand rupiahs to play in the Kidz City in Jakarta. I remembered four children of my helper back in Medan, how could she afford to pay such amount?

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