This paper presents an intervention-based project with children in the city of Fortaleza, when children were asked to elaborate, through focused group discussions, their constructions about living in the city. It was assumed that to live in a big city means to be able to position oneself critically before the demands of collective life. Discussions were stimulated about three distinct aspects: what is to live in the city today; what possibilities for collective life could be imagined; and how lived and sought for experiences could entail a realistic construction of city life. Children showed capacity of critically analysing their experience in the city, indicating those aspects that were, from their point of view, hardest to face. They also showed capacity of pointing out collective endeavours that could make it easier for them, as children, the task of living in a big city.
City; child; social participation