The child and the city: the little flâneur. Preface

Abstract

Having become enormous habitats in the last decades the world over, can cities still express human qualities and beauty? And how can they meet the expectations of a child?

Throughout history, cities have been narrative and sign-producing machines, places endowed with sense and shaped by experience, real and imaginary places, canvasses for design and representation in a continuous poietic, symbolic, and fantastic process. This volume, which features an interdisciplinary approach, examines the importance of the child in the history of education and urban civilization. Various topics are explored, including the silences and cries of the street and square as educators, historians, linguists, sociologists, and city planners examine the old and new domains of the polis, offering up apt descriptions, observations, and analyses.