Introduction

In 2005, the New South Wales (NSW) Joint Parliamentary Committee for Children and Young People launched first Parliamentary Inquiry into children, youth and the built environment. The Parliamentary Inquiry received fifty seven submissions and generated a series of recommendations which were acted upon by the Commission. Public space is consistently shared with adults and it can be a contested and politically charged arena where community values are on display in relation to many issues, including community's response to young people. The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) has been used for many years as the framework to define how to go about meeting children's needs in urban environments. Those who advocate for a new conceptualization of children and young people emerged in force, post 1989, from the so-called new sociology of childhood. This group of researchers sought to redress the social view of children from biological becomings to social citizens and beings with rights as children.