Abstract
Every child is capable of becoming an urban planner because they use their minds and bodies to understand the places they habituate. My interactive method taps into their experiences, emotions, and imagination through play to bring out the city planners in them.
Children have an intuitive sense of the environment around them and this knowledge needs to be developed in allowing them to learn how the participate in civic matters and shape cities in the future.
Author Biography
James Rojas is an urban planner, community activist, and artist. He is one of the few nationally recognized urban planners to examine U.S. Latino cultural influences on urban design. He holds a Master of City Planning and a Master of Science of Architecture Studies from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. His influential thesis on the Latino built environment has been widely cited. Mr. Rojas founded the Latino Urban Forum (LUF), a volunteer advocacy group, dedicated to understanding and improving the built environment of Los Angeles’ Latino communities. Most recently, Mr. Rojas has developed the community outreach tool called Place It. He has facilitated over 300 interactive workshops and created over 43 interactive urban diorama across the US, Mexico and Canada. He has collaborated with municipalities, non-profits, educational institutions, museums and galleries to educate the public on urban planning.
Recommended Citation
Rojas, James
(2013)
"Children Are Natural-Born Urban Planners!,"
Journal of Applied Research on Children: Informing Policy for Children at Risk: Vol. 4:
Iss.
2, Article 22.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.58464/2155-5834.1176
Available at:
https://digitalcommons.library.tmc.edu/childrenatrisk/vol4/iss2/22
