ABSTRACT
This chapter argues that notions of 'sustainability' need to be accompanied or even supplanted by notions of multiple versions of 'life' in sustainable urban places. It explores the discussion of sustainable urbanism to show how planning for 'liveability' and 'conviviality' are always-already entangled with vital materialisms and diverse ways of doing life. The chapter provides a brief schematic introduction to the diverse ways in which 'play' has been conceived and expands on the argument for de-naturalising and re-imagining the relationship between childhood and play. It proceeds to discuss four thematics that involve childhood/play: everyday social relations; nonhuman agency; social difference; the politics of vitality. The chapter makes a conceptual case for understanding the often ambiguous energies that emerge from the space between childhood and play as vitalizing. It sets out how we might begin to understand how childhood and play matter to the creation of sustainable, vital urban places.
