How to Design Cities for Children (2018)

I think city design is one area where technology and data science is an underutilized tool. Comparing the answers to questions like:

- How far does the average household have to walk to a play structure? - What's the median distance that a parent feels comfortable allowing their child walk at each age? 90th percentile?

And placing play structures in the areas that would most meaningfully move the latter number seems like a great way to make cities more livable.

(For what it's worth, I think doing the same for public transit could also be powerful.)

The big problem here seems to be figuring out a way to capture the value from doing such an analysis: lots of value is generated if smart actions are taken, but it's relatively difficult for any company doing a good job in the space to capture that value.