Urban Planning Needs to Grow Up

Cities are great at building for ambition—glass towers, tech hubs, high-speed transit—but not always so great at building for bedtime, sidewalk chalk, and playdates. If you’re a parent living in an urban area, you’ve probably noticed that a lot of city design feels like it forgot about families.

But what if it didn’t have to be this way? What if city planners, architects, and developers started thinking like parents, people who know how important it is to combine convenience with comfort, structure with spontaneity, and yes, play with purpose?

As it turns out, there’s a growing body of research and real-world examples that show when cities plan for families, everyone benefits. All it takes is a little intention—and a few more places for kids to ride scooters without getting run over.

The Case for Shared Courtyards and Communal Spaces

One of the simplest ways to support urban families is to rethink what "home" means in a city. It’s not just what’s inside the apartment walls. It’s also about hallways, lobbies, stoops, sidewalks, and shared courtyards. These in-between spaces, often overlooked in design, have the potential to become thriving pockets of community life.

Research from the Urban Land Institute and studies out of Europe show that shared courtyards and semi-private common areas foster stronger social ties among neighbors, improve safety, and reduce feelings of isolation among parents. Children benefit too. They gain safe, accessible places to play just steps from their homes—no carpooling, no logistics, just the freedom to be a kid.

In Berlin, many apartment buildings are designed around enclosed courtyards that offer a mix of green space, sandboxes, seating, and sometimes even mini play structures. Parents can cook dinner or work from home while still feeling connected to their children’s activity outside. The setup also encourages casual adult interaction, helping build the kind of neighborhood network that today’s parents deeply miss.

The takeaway? We don’t need to build more massive parks (though that’s great too). We need to treat the space between our buildings as valuable social infrastructure—places where life happens, not just places people pass through.

Public Spaces Should Be Fun, Not Just Functional

Too often, urban public space is built with efficiency in mind—benches, bike racks, concrete plazas—but not with joy. And kids are experts in sniffing out whether something is fun or just... a place to wait for the bus.

Imagine if cities invested in playful, versatile spaces that cater to all ages. Not just a patch of grass and a jungle gym, but skate parks, splash pads, disc golf courses, nature play areas, and flexible courtyards where both strollers and scooters feel at home.

Skate parks, once seen as magnets for trouble, are now recognized by urban planners as critical spaces for youth development. A study published in the Journal of Urban Design found that well-maintained skate parks contribute to youth mental health, physical activity, and community engagement. They’re self-organized arenas where kids set their own goals, build skills, and support each other—especially teens, who are often underserved in playground planning.

Disc golf is another underrated gem. It’s inexpensive, low-impact, and works for multiple generations. Families can play together with almost no learning curve, and the course layouts often encourage exploration of public land in ways traditional sports fields don’t.

When cities include these kinds of features in their planning—especially near housing and transit—they show families that they matter. They also create healthier communities by encouraging residents to be active and interact with each other across age groups.

Making Room for Families Means Making Room for Childhood

Urban living shouldn’t mean sacrificing the best parts of childhood. Yet too often, families are forced to make tough choices—commute farther for a good school, move out of the city for green space, or forgo public transit access in order to afford a home big enough to raise kids.

It doesn’t have to be this way. Smart family-friendly design isn’t about massive overhauls. It’s about small, strategic choices that add up. Things like wider sidewalks for double strollers. Benches near playgrounds with shade and coffee nearby. Crosswalks that prioritize kids. Buildings that welcome multigenerational living. Public restrooms that are clean, safe, and stroller-accessible.

And yes—more fun stuff. More climbing walls. More splash pads. More surprise murals that spark imagination. More places where a tired parent can sit down while their kid makes a new friend.

When cities become more livable for families, they become more livable, period. They become places where people want to stay—not just pass through on the way to the suburbs. That kind of retention is gold for cities looking to maintain diversity, economic resilience, and community health.

It’s time to design with kids in mind—not just as future citizens, but as people living here right now, full of needs, joy, and a whole lot of energy.