Children’s play in grey spaces: ludic geographies and the chromatic turn

Children have long played in ‘grey spaces’, on doorsteps, roads, car parks, back lanes, but this ludic geography is not uncontested. Debates around the proper place for children’s outdoor play, in the UK and beyond, have recurred regularly, with the apparent superiority of green spaces being repeatedly promoted, from the emergence of the first ‘play streets’ in the mid-twentieth century to the centring of proximity to nature today. Based on research on play on streets in the UK, this paper argues for play in grey spaces. Children often express a preference for these spaces; the physical and social affordances of such grey spaces are many and varied and point to a more nuanced chromatic geography of play. Children’s play reflects their valuing of these spaces and children animate – colour – grey spaces as they play in them. The presence of children in and around their neighbourhoods, in ambiguous, undervalued, interstitial spaces, can act as a catalyst for revaluing these spaces, opening possibilities for change and challenge. In all these ways, engaging in and reflecting on play in grey spaces can open up conversations, on the doorstep and beyond, which can – and do – connect to questions of social, spatial and environmental justice.