ABSTRACT
Martha Muchow’s work on the life space of children was among the earliest and most outstanding approaches concerning how children experience outdoor environments. The difficulty faced by researchers is finding a method for maintaining the focus on both environment and behavior phenomena while dealing with large-scale urban and rural environments where children and adolescents live and play. Restrictions placed on the home range of children and teenagers may inhibit the development of the mental and social skills that help them explore the opportunities and cope with the challenges of their environment. Muchow research provides a fascinating in-depth picture of the urban life space of school-age children during the early 1930s. Consistent with frequent observations made by others, the children she observed made use of public spaces intended primarily for pedestrian and vehicular traffic—notably city streets—for their play, while avoiding areas specifically set aside for them such as developed parks.
