societies Article Creating a Child-Friendly Environment: An Interpretation of Children’s Drawings from Planned Neighborhood Parks of Lucknow City Mohit Kumar Agarwal 1, *, Vandana Sehgal 2 and Aurobindo Ogra 3   Citation: Agarwal, M.K.; Sehgal, V.; Ogra, A. Creating a Child-Friendly Environment: An Interpretation of Children’s Drawings from Planned Neighborhood Parks of Lucknow City. Societies 2021, 11, 80. https:// doi.org/10.3390/soc11030080 Academic Editor: Gregor Wolbring Received: 3 June 2021 Accepted: 2 July 2021 Published: 14 July 2021 Publisher’s Note: MDPI stays neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affil- iations. Copyright: © 2021 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by/ 4.0/). 1 School of Architecture and Planning, BBD University, Lucknow 226028, India 2 Faculty of Architecture and Planning, Dr. Abdul Kalam Technical University, Lucknow 226007, India; sehgal_vandana@hotmail.com 3 Department of Urban and Regional Planning, Faculty of Engineering and the Built Environment, University of Johannesburg, Johannesburg 2028, South Africa; aogra@uj.ac.za * Correspondence: dean.soa@bbdu.ac.in Abstract: The urban environment is a product of many tangible and intangible factors for commu- nities, involving activities, spaces, and users of different age groups. Stakeholder consultation has become an essential part of envisaging any urban space. In general practice, mostly adults’ opinions and suggestions are taken into account, and children are sidelined, even if the issues are related to children. Children are an integral part of the present urbanizing world and are some of its most sensitive and affected users. The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child recognizes three P’s: provision, protection, and participation. The third, participation, is a crucial dimension of creating a healthier environment, but it has largely been neglected. The drawing technique is among the methods to gather information directly through the children’s participatory approach. It has been observed that children prefer to express themselves by drawing rather than answering questions and find it easy and enjoyable. This research incorporates drawing as a methodological tool for identifying children’s expectations and understanding their preferences about their ideal neighborhood park. A total of 80 children aged between 6 and 15 years from planned zones of Luc- know city were selected for the research. The results derived from the content and co-relation data analysis techniques highlight that children emphasized physical, perceptional, cognitive, emotional, and social parameters for developing a child-friendly environment in parks and open spaces. Keywords: urbanization; child psychology; child-friendly environment; children research techniques; children’s drawing 1. Introduction Urbanization can be defined as the increase in economic activities due to an increase in the population of the urban area. People from one territory migrate to other territo- ries/cities for better jobs and living conditions, expanding the urban fringe areas [1–3] and attracting development and urban transformation [4,5]. This development may not necessarily be related to the needs of the residents, but rather is largely driven by the interests of private builders/developers [6]. This has placed a large amount of pressure on the existing infrastructure, including roads and transportation, social infrastructure, and open green spaces [7]. The life of the residents of these overpopulated cities has become ‘modern life’, with imbalances in their financial stability, income levels, and everlasting demands. This has also generated inequality between the residents of various income groups as well as different age groups [3]. Such an imbalance is also seen in the planning of the spatial environment, in which children have no voice, as they are not a part of the planning process. This has an impact on their physical and mental health and also reduces their life expectancy. Even children Societies 2021, 11, 80. https://doi.org/10.3390/soc11030080 https://www.mdpi.com/journal/societies