Abstract:
Like many other developing countries of the world, in Bangladesh, critical child issues such
as health and disease, hunger, poverty, child labour and illiteracy dominates the discussion
of child-problems. This tendency is responsible for the near complete exclusion of school
going urban children from the sphere of research. Some recent findings revealed that in the
realm of unprecedented rate of urbanization, this specific population of urban children of
Bangladesh have distinctive problems of their own and are suffering from conditions which
may not be as manifested as issues like poverty, health and hunger; but no less severe in
terms of long term effect. Lack of independent mobility and little or no provisions for
playing out-door are two of such conditions proven to be unsupportive, if not harmful, for
the proper development of the child.
Many studies have expressed concerns about the decrease in children’s freedom of
movement. Street design has attracted attention for both its contribution to the problem
and its potential as a solution, but few studies actually examined the impact of
characteristics of neighbourhood streets on independent mobility of children.
Dhaka, being the 9th largest and the fastest growing mega city of the world by population
provided a unique setting for a research on children’s independent mobility. In this
research the existence of any interrelation between street design characteristics and
independent mobility of children was investigated. The study was conducted over sixty
school going children of Dhaka of 7 years to 11 years of age. 4 dependent variables were
determined to calculate the level of independent mobility of children and 6 specific street
design characteristics were employed as independent variables. 6 socio-demographic and 4
built-environment variables of independent mobility were also considered. A qualitative
part was added to understand the role of perception variables of independent mobility.
Street type and street width were found to have significant relationship with independent
time of children. Number of streets to cross negatively influenced regular independent
distance but no significant relationship was found between street design and occasional
maximum independent distance of a child. Both street type and number of street crossings
influenced autonomy of children in their school trips. Gender of a child was found to have
the highest consistent relationship with all four measures of independent mobility.
