31/05/2026
WHY DO CITIES PROVIDE RUNNING TRACKS, OUTDOOR GYMS AND CYCLING INFRASTRUCTURE, BUT ALMOST NO SPACES DESIGNED FOR BABYWEARING? WHO THOUGHT KIDS ONLY PLAY ONCE THEY REACH A PLAYGROUND?
Why do urban planners calculate traffic flows, parking demand and commercial activity, yet rarely measure how far a mother can comfortably walk while recovering from childbirth?
Why do we assume that parenting should happen in isolation when, for most of human history, child-rearing depended on conversation, observation and mutual support between adults? Where did the spaces for comadreo go?
And why is it easier to find a place to charge a mobile phone than a comfortable place to breastfeed, express milk, soothe a crying baby or sit with other parents without feeling obliged to buy something?
The Wellbeing Routes presented in Wellbeing in the City at with the collaboration of were originally developed in the book *Los Barrios del Buen Vivir*. They begin from a simple observation: cities have been extensively designed around production and consumption, but rarely around reproduction.
The Maternal Route proposes a different urban model. It starts from evidence showing that mothers of children under three often have less than thirty minutes of uninterrupted personal time each day. Rather than treating this as a private problem, it asks how urban design might respond.
The route combines walking distances compatible with post-partum recovery, shaded paths, baby sensory gardens, breastfeeding stations, clusters of benches designed to encourage conversation, intergenerational play spaces, community kitchens, seed gardens and babywearing trails. None of these elements is extraordinary. What is extraordinary is how rarely they appear in contemporary cities.
Perhaps the most important infrastructure for parenting is not a building, but the possibility of encountering others going through the same experience.
What is the one thing you wish your city had provided when you needed it most? We're reading.
