Opening neighbourhood streets for community-building and children's outdoor free play

Abstract

Street play interventions have the potential to socially benefit children and all community members within a neighbourhood, which have increasingly been taken over by vehicles. The StreetPLAY pilot program implemented in the city of Toronto by Earth Day Canada is the first-of-its-kind in Canada. Surveys in the neighbourhood were analyzed to explore the social benefits, associations between demographics and perceptions, and potential for replication in similar urban neighbourhood contexts. The results from independent sample t-tests and ANOVA tests indicate community member’s age and status as a parent was statistically significant to perceptions of community connectivity following StreetPLAY programming. The findings from this research confirm the social benefits to the community and contribute to novel Canadian research on play interventions; they are a quick and inexpensive form of tactical urbanism programming to create opportunities for children’s outdoor free play and community gathering. Keywords: Outdoor play, streets as public space; tactical urbanism; community building, health and wellbeing