A new playability index gives Toronto residents a neighbourhood-level look at how well their communities support outdoor free play for children aged two to six. The tool, developed by Emily Gemmell, a postdoctoral researcher at UBC’s School of Population and Public Health, measures multiple factors that affect whether young children can safely and frequently play outside.
The index is one of the first urban metrics focused specifically on early childhood play. Gemmell designed it to fill a gap in existing measures, which tended to emphasise adult behaviours and movement patterns rather than child needs.
How the playability index works
The index combines five domains: spaces for play, opportunities for social interaction, traffic environment, natural environment, and child-relevant destinations. Each domain is scored and then aggregated to produce a neighbourhood playability value. The score is meant to reflect everyday outdoor opportunities for a young child walking or playing near home.
In Canada, and across the world, there are many urban metrics that look at the healthiness of urban environments, but they’re mostly focused on adult behaviours and movement patterns. There wasn’t really anything for children, and yet this is a developmental period where the experiences and exposures that happen in early childhood have arguably the biggest impact on health across the lifespan.
Emily Gemmell
Gemmell notes the index is a broad, data-driven measure that uses available datasets, so it does not capture every nuance of neighbourhood life. It is intended to show the big picture of how a place supports outdoor play rather than to assess individual parks or buildings.
What the index found in Toronto
Toronto’s downtown core scored lowest on playability, while many areas outside the core scored higher. The neighbourhood with the lowest playability score was Wellington Place in the downtown core, with an average score of 2.54. The highest-scoring neighbourhood was Lambton Baby Point at 8.07, followed by High Park-Swansea at 7.55 and Roncesvalles at 7.45.
- Lowest: Wellington Place, 2.54
- Highest: Lambton Baby Point, 8.07
- High Park-Swansea, 7.55
- Roncesvalles, 7.45
The differences reflect trade-offs between domains. Downtown areas tend to score better on child-relevant destinations such as schools and libraries, but they often rank lower on natural environment measures and safe outdoor space. Suburban and inner-suburban neighbourhoods can offer more natural or open spaces, but they may have fewer walkable child destinations.
Maybe the downtown core is lower in the natural environment domain, but it’s higher in the child-relevant destinations. And so there’s a trade-off that you make. If you’re going to live in the suburbs, if there’s nowhere to walk, it might result in going outdoors less. There are trade-offs and there’s nuance.
Emily Gemmell
Why this matters for parents and planners
Early childhood experiences shape development, physical activity and social skills. The index is intended to prompt families, community groups and planners to consider how neighbourhood design influences a child’s day-to-day outdoor life. That includes the presence of safe play spaces, low-traffic streets, nearby natural elements and places that support social interaction.
Gemmell hopes the index will be used to identify neighbourhood strengths and weaknesses and to support planning decisions that improve child-friendly design. She also invites residents to view their surroundings from a young child’s perspective and think about the opportunities available within short walking distances.
Look around outside your neighbourhood. How does a five-year-old look at this? What activities or what kind of interactions can a five-year-old have walking outside their building or their door? Developmentally, the experiences of early childhood are central to developing the brain infrastructure that underlies all future learning, so the diversity of experiences in early childhood is really important and if children are excluded from outdoors, their world shrinks.
Emily Gemmell
What you can do
- Check the playability map for your neighbourhood to see domain scores and specific strengths.
- Advocate to your local councillor for traffic-calming measures, more natural elements and child-priority destinations.
- Organise or join local play groups and neighbour initiatives that activate streets and parks.
- Support school and library programs that extend safe outdoor play opportunities.
The playability index is not a definitive ranking of neighbourhood quality, but it provides actionable information about the outdoor environments that matter most to young children. For families and policymakers, the data can be a starting point for making streets and parks more inviting and safer for everyday play.
