Children should have a right to play in the streets, alleys, pavements and car parks of their neighborhoods

In July 2025, a letter from an English municipality neighborhood services officer circulated on social media.

It read: “We have received complaints about young children playing ball games on the main road and streets. This can cause damage to vehicles and property. If your child is playing ball games on the road, please speak to them and stop them from doing so. It is dangerous for children to play on the roads. It is also disruptive to other residents on the street. There are many local parks where children can be taken to play safely… Please use them.”

This letter goes to the heart of the debates on the right of children to play and their right to the streets. It ignores the fact that cars have encroached on streets, which were previously considered social spaces, not the other way around. It is only really in recent decades that drivers have been seen as the main – or only – legitimate users of road space.

This implies that children should be “taken” to designated play spaces, rather than allowing children to be able to access a play space without adults. Finally, it fails to recognize that parks and other green spaces only allow certain types of play and that children demand – and deserve – diverse spaces for various forms of play, not just ball games, swings and slides.

Such complaints, addressed to local newspapers, councils, parents and others, have been appearing for more than 100 years, ever since 19th and early 20th century activists sought to remove children’s play from the streets.

They reflect a recurring question in children’s play: whether children should play only in designated, often green spaces, or whether they should be able to play throughout their neighborhood, in “gray spaces” such as streets, parking lots, alleys and sidewalks.

The idea of ​​gray spaces, developed in the context of skateboarding research, conveys both the colors of the urban environment and the ambivalence and liminality of urban space.

My research into play streets and broader geographies of neighborhood play seeks to highlight the particular value of gray space for children’s play. I advocate for play in gray spaces, despite the insistent promotion of green spaces.

Streets and other “gray” spaces, such as parking lots, sidewalks, and alleys, have always been where children primarily played, before and after the emergence of playgrounds. These are also the spaces in which children choose to play, when the conditions are right.

These are the spaces that remain most accessible to children in all sorts of diverse locations around the world. This is especially true for children living in neighborhoods facing intersecting disadvantages, such as poverty, racism, and environmental injustice.

My research has highlighted a number of particular and valuable features of gray space play.

When playable gray spaces are located near children’s homes, they can come and go more easily. They can bring indoor toys and other play equipment into their outdoor games. It allows for remote supervision by adults and gives the opportunity to make the most of small moments of time, between household chores, homework and scheduled commitments.

Playing in the gray spaces of streets and neighborhoods allows children to form friendships and other relationships with neighbors of all ages. Neighborhood play can create spaces of care, providing children and their families with a sense of belonging and familiarity on their doorstep.

The shape of gray spaces – slopes, curbs, trailers, walls, potholes, lamp posts, weeds, puddles, fences, plants, bumps and surfaces – provide extremely varied play environments. It often offers more than designated indoor or outdoor play spaces.

By playing in these gray urban spaces, children exercise their right to play and their right to the city. This piece has the potential to strengthen their connection to their neighborhood, their sense of belonging and their right to use the spaces on their doorstep.

Children’s play also enlivens gray spaces. It brings both literal color, through toys, chalking and colored bodies, but also life, emotion and commitment.

The opportunity to play in gray space – and the challenges associated with it – can open up broader local conversations about inequalities in access to space at the gates, highlighting issues of social, spatial and environmental justice.

If we fail to value and enable play in gray spaces, we ignore – and devalue – spaces that not only provide diverse and accessible play opportunities, but also the potential for valuable spaces for connection and care. The singular valorization of green space for children’s play is based on particular ideas about the child, childhood and play. This diverts political and financial attention from everyday urban play spaces.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.