Geographies of outdoor play in Dhaka: an explorative study on children’s location preference, usage pattern, and accessibility range of play spaces

This paper explores children’s (aged 7–16) outdoor play in terms of location preference, usage pattern, and accessibility range of play spaces in three neighbourhoods in Dhaka. Data were collected through a survey of children and their respective parents, interviews with children, and observation of play activities in 21 play spaces. Analytical results reveal diverse geographies of children’s outdoor play across gender, age, family income, urban areas, and length of stay. The preferences for outdoor play and intensity of use of the play spaces were significantly lower among girls compared to boys. The frequency of access to play spaces decreased exponentially with the distance between children’s home and play space (exponent of distance-decay = 0.346 per 100 m). Results add evidence to the everyday geographies of children’s outdoor play and inform urban planners in their efforts to create better play environments for and with children in high-density South Asian cities.