Understanding child-friendly commuting: policy discourses and community realities in Nanjing, China

Child-friendly commuting has become an important focus in recent international discussions on children’s rights, mobility justice and urban governance. Yet little empirical work examines how policy commitments translate into everyday commuting environments in rapidly urbanizing contexts. This study investigates three pilot child-friendly communities in Nanjing by combining policy and media content analysis, systematic field observation, and childrens descriptions of their commuting experiences. The findings reveal a significant gap between the safety-oriented, infrastructure-focused logic emphasized in local policies and news, and the everyday conditions encountered by children. While physical improvements such as crossings, signage, and sidewalk upgrades were widely implemented, children continued to report environmental discomfort, inconsistent maintenance, traffic behavior and the lack of psychological and social support. The analysis further shows that children’s participation remains limited, and spatial variations across communities reflect broader inequalities in governance capacity and neighborhood conditions. These results demonstrate that child-friendly commuting cannot be achieved through infrastructural provision alone. Sustainable improvement requires a shift toward continuous, child-centered governance systems that balance safety, participation, emotional well-being and spatial equity. The study contributes to children’s geographies and urban planning scholarship and offers insights for improving child-friendly mobility initiatives in diverse governance contexts.