What design features encourage active play?

Hunter and colleagues had this goal: “To identify features parents perceived as being relevant for their child’s active play, their own active recreation, and their coactivity. Parents . . . with preschoolers . . . living in Edmonton, Canada were recruited. . . . Parents reported demographic information and the importance of several neighborhood features (destinations, design, social, safety, esthetics) for their child’s active play, their own active recreation, and their coactivity via six-item Likert scales. . . .

The majority of parents reported that 23 of the 32 neighborhood features were perceived as being relevant for all activity domains.”

So what are the best features in towns and cities that encouraged preschoolers’ active play, parents active recreation and helped parent-child co-activity?

“These included:

• destinations (parks, playgrounds, arenas, schools, sport fields, arenas/ice rinks, river valley/ravine),
• design features (quiet streets, trails, sidewalks),
• social features (friends/family, child’s friends, other children playing outside, knowing neighbors, trusting neighbors),
• safety features (street lighting, crime, traffic, daylight, sidewalk maintenance, crosswalks), and
• esthetic features (cleanliness, natural features).”

Stephen Hunter, Scott Leatherdale, John Spence, and Valerie Carson.  2022. “Perceived Relevance of Neighborhood Features for Encouraging Preschoolers’ Active Play, Parents’ Active Recreation, and Parent-Child Coactivity.”  Canadian Journal of Behavioural Science, vol. 54, no. 3, pp. 249-255, https://doi.org/10.1037/cbs0000304