The built environment and well-being of children into the future

Welcome to 2020. We hope this year will see many positive changes for children, young people, their families and communities, but over recent months, wherever we have living, we have faced climate-related events – fires, floods, storms and other issues resulting from these. Australia, in particular, has been experiencing catastrophic fires which continue as I write this editorial. Such events are not only traumatic and leave many people without shelter and livelihood but also require long periods of recovery time for all concerned. I understand that there is no quick fix to any of these events, nor way of preventing them, but I have been thinking about how we provide for children, young people and their families with a basic liveable infrastructure and the kinds of places and spaces that will afford the greatest safety from the elements. Many people have given attention to this topic. In Australia, back in 2011, the Commissioner for Children and Young People inWestern Australia, Michelle Scott, was involved in developing a report on current and future needs in relation to places and spaces, and she stated: ‘The built environment has a significant impact on children and young people’s development, their quality of life and their experience and enjoyment of the world. Schools, houses, shops, walkways, railways, parks, recreational and community centres are all part of our built environment.’ (Commissioner for Children and Young People WA, 2011, p.2). In this editorial, I have limited the scope of ‘place’ to homes and their immediate environment and raise concerns about the nature of dwellings currently experienced by people experiencing disadvantage and the houses that are being built in affluent, western countries, including those that replace burnt-out dwellings. But first, let me reiterate some of the challenges that will come with our changing climate. These include increased temperature (Allen et al., 2018), changes to disease spread (Sriskantharajah, 2019), more violent weather events (Steffen, Dean, & Rice, 2019), rising sea levels, and water stress and droughts (Allen et al., 2018). In addition, the frequency with which some communities are being affected is of concern with places such as Looe, in Cornwall, UK, predicted to be subject to flooding some 60 times a year by 2050 (Wall, 2019) and possibly uninhabitable by that time. Many island nations are already petitioning other countries for assistance with funding andmigration arrangements due to sea level rises which are affecting fresh water supplies, sewer infrastructure and dwellings (Cassella, 2019). Droughts are also impacting upon many countries causing food shortages, loss of income and, in some cases, abandonment of what were formerly viable agricultural pursuits. These issues have health impacts for individuals and communities, with children considered more vulnerable due to the factors outlined by the World Health Organization (WHO, n.d.), these being: