Cities for Children with Tim Gill

Cities for Children with Tim Gill

Author: The War on Cars, LLC September 30, 2025 Duration: 37:45

Tim Gill is a London-based independent scholar, writer and consultant on childhood, and a global advocate for children's play and mobility. He is the author of Urban Playground: How Child-Friendly Urban Planning and Design Can Save Cities and No Fear: Growing Up in a Risk Averse Society.

We met Tim when he appeared on a panel with Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo that Sarah moderated during Climate Week in New York. When we heard what he has to say about cities and children, we knew that we had to have him on the show.

So we grabbed him before he could leave New York. We talked on a bench in City Hall Park on a weekday morning, so you can hear the sounds of a city that is waking up and going to work and school in the background. It was an appropriate setting for a chat about how we by making cities better for children, we make them better for everyone. 

Support The War on Cars on Patreon and receive exclusive access to ad-free versions of regular episodes, Patreon-only bonus content, Discord access, invitations to live events, merch discounts and free stickers!

***Our new book, Life After Cars: Freeing Ourselves from the Tyranny of the Automobile, will be published on October 21, 2025 by Thesis, an imprint of Penguin Random House. Pre-order now.***

Find us on our book tour in San FranciscoVancouverWashington, DC, Portland, OR and more. We're adding new cities every week.

The War on Cars is produced with the generous support of the Helen & William Mazer Foundation.

This episode was sponsored by Cleverhood and Upway. Listen for the latest discount codes.

 


Imagine a world not built around traffic jams and parking lots, but shaped for people. The War on Cars is a dispatch from the front lines of that effort, a collective conversation questioning the automobile’s dominance over our cities, our environment, and our daily lives. Each episode digs into the real-world fight to reclaim public space, examining everything from the politics of a new bike lane to the history of how cars came to rule. You’ll hear from urban planners, activists, historians, and ordinary people pushing back, offering a mix of sharp analysis, on-the-ground reporting, and compelling narratives. This isn’t just about transportation; it’s about the culture and societal choices that have led us here, and the tangible, often inspiring work to create safer, quieter, and more connected communities. Tune in for a thoughtful and necessary critique of the status quo, a podcast dedicated to the idea that our streets can-and should-be for so much more.
Author: Language: English Episodes: 100

The War on Cars
Podcast Episodes
PREVIEW: Hanging Out with Jonathan Maus of Bike Portland [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 6:29
***This is a preview of a Patreon-exclusive bonus episode. For complete access to this and all of our bonus content, plus ad-free versions of regular episodes, merch discounts, presale tickets to live shows, and more, be…
Dispatches from Book Tour, Part 2 [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:18:00
We are back home in Brooklyn but we can't stop talking about everything we saw out on the road on our Life After Cars book tour. Listen for our takes on the second leg of our trip, which took us from Providence to Austin…
Dispatches from Book Tour [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:06:55
The last few weeks have been a whirlwind as we hit the road (not in a car) to promote our new book, Life After Cars, in some of the greatest cities of North America including San Francisco, Washington, DC, Seattle, Vanco…
The Creation of America's Car Culture [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 29:46
This episode is part of a special series called "Changing American Car Culture" funded with the generous support of The Helen and William Mazer Foundation. As historian Peter Norton documents in his book, Fighting Traffi…
PREVIEW: A Talk with Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 2:14
This is a preview of a Patreon-exclusive bonus episode. For complete access to this and all of our bonus content, plus ad-free versions of regular episodes, merch discounts, presale tickets to live shows, and more, becom…
Welcome to Life After Cars [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 43:58
Today we celebrate the publication of our new book, Life After Cars: Freeing Ourselves From the Tyranny of the Automobile. In this episode, we serve up a sample of the audiobook and talk about some of the things we learn…
The War on the War on Cars with Ted Mann [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 38:16
In this episode, we talk about the Trump Administration's full-on financial assault on all the modes of transportation we hold dear here at The War on Cars. Biking, walking, public transit—basically, anything deemed "hos…
PREVIEW: The Cars of TikTok [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 7:42
This is a preview of a Patreon-exclusive bonus episode. For complete access to this and all of our bonus content, plus ad-free versions of regular episodes, merch discounts, presale tickets to live shows, and more, becom…
Political Courage with Brad Lander [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:07:51
Brad Lander has been a fixture in New York's progressive political scene for nearly two decades now, and has earned a reputation as a strong advocate for bike lanes, bike share, driver accountability, and congestion pric…
TEASER: Cars Drive Us Apart, Subway Takes Unite Us [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 8:10
This is a preview of a Patreon-exclusive bonus episode. For complete access to this and all of our bonus content, plus ad-free versions of regular episodes, merch discounts, presale tickets to live shows, and more, becom…