Streets impact
health and wellbeing
public health and safety
quality of life
environmental sustainability
economic sustainability
social equity
multimodal access
The Global Designing Cities Initiative transforms streets for the people who use them, shaping cities that allow everyone to prosper.
Our team of designers, planners, and urban strategists seeks to inspire leaders, inform practitioners, and invite communities to imagine what is possible when we design streets that put people first.
The Global Street Design Guide supports practitioners in redefining the role of streets in cities around the world. Created with the input of experts from 72 cities in 42 countries, the Guide offers technical details to inform street design that prioritizes pedestrians, cyclists, and transit riders.
Designing Streets for Kids captures international best practices, strategies, programs, and policies that cities around the world have used to design spaces that enable children of all ages and abilities to utilize cities’ most abundant asset – streets.
This handbook outlines the steps from initial site selection to planning, implementing, and maintaining pop-up or interim street transformations with a focus on community-driven street designs that ensure the safety and comfort of all street users.
Scaling up Streets for Kids in Brazil, Mexico and Zambia
Designing streets for kids goes beyond one-off street transformations and temporary events. It requires scaling up and making street improvements part of citywide programs and policies. In 2024, four cities, Canoas, Brazil; León, Mexico; Lusaka, Zambia; and Recife, Brazil, participated in the latest Streets for Kids program round, which included tailored technical assistance to implement projects and scale up the vision for kids-first projects, programs, and policies.
GDCI marks this World Children's Day with the release of two new booklets, “How to Engage Kids in Street Design” and “How to Evaluate Street Transformations Near Schools.”
In 2023, ten cities across four continents started designing their streets for kids. Collectively, the cohort reclaimed over 40,000 SqM of public space that prioritizes children and caregivers, engaged over 4,000 children in the process, and trained 140 practitioners.
