Parents and children consuming the city: geographies of family outings across class

Cities are generally described as urban jungles for everyday family life. This is mainly based on poor facilities for outdoor play. But children's everyday life consists of many more leisure activities. In this paper, we focus on family outings: the various ways children and parents consume the city. It is argued that family outings are important building blocks for growing up and cementing family ties. They can be grouped under the umbrella of consuming the city and as such their growth fits perfectly into the new position of cities as consumption landscapes. Empirical data are drawn from a case study in Amsterdam and Rotterdam, the Netherlands, among families of different classes with young children (N = 42) living in inner city districts. The main conclusion of this study is that social risers and upper-middle classes enjoy the city for family outings much more than the lower class families, even when they live in the same neighbourhoods (as is the case in this study) and even when we focus on free to enter public spaces. The discussion part of this paper reflects on the issue of the urban jungle as opposed to the rural idyll for growing up and family life.

Keywords

• family leisure,
• cities,
• consumption spaces,
• urban childhood,
• gentrifying neighbourhood

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