Copenhagen’s Adult Park Offers Rare Child-Free Green Spaces

On UNICEF’s latest list of the best countries for children, Denmark came in second place. Copenhagen as a city is known for being kid-friendly, scoring high on something called the “popsicle test”–which assesses the safety of a place “according to whether an eight-year-old can walk to a shop on their own, buy a lolly and return home safely.” It’s a unique way to measure safety but does offer some insight into what has typically been most important for urban planners when designing public spaces in Denmark.

The downside, ​according to an article from Copenhagen based writer Michael Booth​, is that the utility of many public spaces across the Danish capital might be overly kid-friendly in a way that diminishes their value for adults:

Perhaps the adults have gone along with it because we ourselves have become so infantilised … Copenhagen’s Opera Park offers a compelling alternative approach to urban spaces, with fewer swings and rubberised safety surfaces, and more contemplative oases – quiet corners of the city in which to read a book or flirt. Who knows? If we show our children more mature ways in which to live in the city, we might begin to raise more robust grown-ups.

The idea of prioritizing adults rather than kids when designing some of these spaces is the interesting non-obvious suggestion Booth proposes in his article. For a place like Copenhagen, and perhaps many others around the world, the broader idea is that the design of these spaces could empower more adults to connect with one another … which should be just as much a priority as keeping kids safe, active and entertained.