a b s t r a c tThe study reports the degree of children's independent mobility (CIM) in Finland for over two decades, from the beginning of the 1990s up to 2011. The first part of the research examined the differences of CIM in five different settlements in 2011: inner city, suburban, large town, small town, and rural village. A cross-sectional survey was used on a total of 821 7-to 15-year-old children in various settlements in different parts of Finland. Independent mobility was operationalized both as mobility licenses, meaning parental permits to perform certain activities independently, and as actual mobility, the proportion of active and independent school travel and independent weekend activities. In the second part of the study, we used the same measures to compare the independent mobility of Finnish children in the 1990s and 2010s. The second sample consisted of a total of 306 8-to 10-year-old children and their parents who participated in the CIM study in 1993-94 or in 2011. The major finding of the study was that in Finland children's independent mobility had decreased significantly during a span of 20 years, even more noticeably in the small town and rural village settings than in the inner city settlements. Finnish children, nevertheless, still enjoy a very high degree of independent mobility when compared with the children from the 16 countries involved in the large international comparative study for which the current research was conducted. In the discussion, we give some possible factors that can provide some understanding of and explanation to these trends.

The article provides a comparative analysis of children's independent mobility in four countries -South Africa, Tanzania, Japan and Australia. The authors discuss key findings across the four study sites and illustrate the contextually bound nuances connected to the data at the community level. The data illustrate that while Japanese children have the most independence generally, Japanese children who live in a small town outside of a main city centre have significantly lower mobility than their city counterparts, and levels of car use for driving children to school are similar to levels in Australia. The results also reveal that while children in South Africa generally look to be more independent, have fewer restrictions and are accompanied less by parents than children in Australia (which appears to have the highest rate of accompaniment), the community-wide data illustrate that children living in the high-income city communities have the least amount of independence of all sites in the four countries, with travel to school by car as high as 87%. Additionally, the research illustrates that age is not a clear determinant of a growing increase in independence and mobility in communities. An inspection of the data reveals possibilities for considering the heterogeneous perspective of childhood where the intersection of children's locales and how children traverse them is as significant as the aggregated data that provide universal notions of the childhood experience. The final discussions provide some opportunities to consider Prout's introduction of a life course approach for reconceptualising children and childhood, which he believes allows for a multiplicity and complexity of childhoods. This concept is seen to be helpful when considering how to include global perspectives in children's independent mobility without universalising children's life experience.

A major challenge for researchers and urban planning practitioners is how to obtain meaningful and influential contributions on urban and environmental planning activities from children and young people within the constraints of adult policy and practice. The key elements of this challenge concern traditional methods of communication between 'experts' and children and young people in rationalist planning settings, versus emerging research in relation to children's and young people's views and agency around civic participation. This article will address the work of a number of researchers and practitioners who have grappled with the inherent tenions of making planning practice and urban design more inclusionary, while facilitating and respecting children and young people's civic participation. This article also advocates the advantages and strengths of their participation in planning and urban design processes.With a focus on two exploratory programs developed by the authors in the Australian states of New South Wales and Victoria, this article will demonstrate how the sharing of knowledge and skills between planning and design professionals and children and young people can lead to more meaningful and influential contributions from them. The programs examined were informed by leading practice both in Australia and internationally, and have assisted to develop children and young people's sense of spatial competence, and their confidence and efficacy in their local environment, contributing ultimately to their wellbeing. They have also supported the establishment of youth leadership groups with the confidence and skills to contribute to ongoing local government urban and environmental planning activities.Children's and young people's views and urban experiences lack legitimacy and voice in the majority of current urban planning processes. Children and young people 1 are primarily restricted to commenting about specific design features of parks and playgrounds, as it is assumed that they have little interest and ability to provide relevant feedback more broadly about their urban environments. Research with children and young people traditionally has been undertaken by adults who regarded children and young people as emerging or developing adults with little consideration of their competence and agency. Hart (1992) and Hinton (2008) have argued that many of the reasons children and young people are excluded from planning processes are based on socio-cultural assumptions. These assumptions arise from a complex image of children and young people, and their abilities. These images automatically associate younger age with spontaneity, immaturity, and lack of experience, rather than recognise the diversity of children's and young people's personalities, skills, knowledge and experience (Driskell, 2002;Hart, 1992;Hinton, 2008). As Driskell (2002) notes, claims against children's and young people's ability to participate in planning activities also applies to adults. Studies by a number of Australian and international resea...

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This paper presents the outcomes from a joint research project that aims to develop a smartphone application/online platform to model the most thermally comfortable active transport route to a planned destination using heat information and tree shading (Shadeway). Here, we provide a summary of our systematic review of academic literature and applications from the Google Play and Apple App Store, to identify current knowledge about personal adaptation strategies when navigating travel in cities during high temperatures. The review identifies that there is a lack of attention regarding the use of smartphone applications to address urban thermal comfort for active transport by government and private industry. We then present the initial results of original research from three community focus groups and an online survey that elicited participants’ opinions about Shadeways in the City of Greater Bendigo (CoGB), Australia. The results clearly show the need for better management of Shadeways in CoGB. For example, 52.3% of the routes traveled by participants suffer from either no or poor levels of shading, and 53 of the shaded areas were located along routes that also experience heavy traffic, which can have an adverse effect on perceptions and actual safety. It is expected that this study will contribute to improve understanding of the methods used to identify adaptation strategies to increasingly extreme temperatures.