What if children could help imagine a sustainable city that resists heatwaves?

I was proud of my idea: to take my 10-year-old daughter to the neighborhood council meeting that evening, which would be devoted to the transformation of our street in northeast Paris. We would discover the project to semi-pedestrianize the roadway and plant trees. Urban planners would explain their choice of materials. Fewer cars and more greenery, it concerned our lives, it concerned ecology: I was full of civic ambition for my offspring. "But why do you want me to go to your meeting? There will only be old people, I won't understand anything and I'll be bored!" she reprimanded me, while I strongly insisted that we leave our house at the usual time of lights out. I forced her hand a little. She held on, reluctantly, throughout the mayor's speech, then slipped, looking like a beaten dog, into the middle of the audience to go back to read comics in her bed. She was right: in her timescale, there were only old people.

Yet the project concerned her first and foremost, like all the little people in the neighborhood: widening the sidewalks, absolute priority for pedestrians throughout the street, slowing the speed limit to 20 kilometers per hour. Perhaps even when it came time to ask questions to the councilors, a number of voices of her age would have counterbalanced, through their possible enthusiasm, those of the adults, worried about no longer being able to drive on the said street, and those of the older ones, frightened by the change itself. To get the kids going, it would have been necessary to organize this little citizens' gathering on a Saturday afternoon with a bowl of soft candies... This is also somewhat the idea – with the exception of soft candies – of certain municipalities, which are concerned about the opinion of children in the transformation of their community.

You have 80.83% of this article left to read. The rest is reserved for subscribers.