Youthful City Index: what does it tell us?
At the beginning of 2018, while studying Cultural Management at Panteion University, one of our graduate courses got us thinking about cities. Under the lead of Professor Betty Tsakarestou, who is the project initiator of the Athens Co-Creation City Branding Project, we started discussing ways to make our city more sustainable, smart, open and better for the people that inhabit it.
Our team (Karolina A. Mackiewicz, Maximos S. Theo. and Ioanna Kakalidi) was challenged to study cities around the globe in order to understand what it is we as cultural managers can do to create a better future for the city we live in.
We case-studied the Global YouthfulCity Index, we evaluated Athens for its strengths and potential and we got in touch with two initiatives in the city and learned about the ways they re-brand and co-create Athens (Impact Hub, Serafio).
In 2014 YouthfulCitiesINDEX, the first ever ranking of metropolises from a youth perspective, analyzed 25 cities around the world in an attempt to quantify which cities are more attractive to young adults (under 30) and understand where youth see the most potential for work and play. Toronto came out on top as the most Youthful City, which made us wonder what it means to live in a youthful city and what we can learn from the case of the Canadian metropolis.
We looked into the Youthful City initiative and Index study methodology and present the results in an attempt to better understand what makes a city livable and youth-friendly.
“Youthful cities are connected, dynamic, open, curious, inventive and playful. Youthful cities are more prosperous with happier citizens. Youthful cities truly engage their youth to build stronger economies and social structures.”
In 2014 more than 50 per cent of the world’s population was under the age of 30 with about the same percentage residing in cities[1]. This has been the driving thought behind YouthfulCities project in understanding the dynamics of cities and their potential for growth. The migration of youth to big cities has huge implications in shaping the social, economic, technological and political landscapes of urban environments. So, what makes a city youthful? And which cities are the most youthful in the world?
North America and Europe were the winners with Toronto, Berlin and New York taking the top three positions. The best ranked city outside of North America or Europe was Buenos Aires in 10th place. While Latin American and African cities scored highly in civic participation, cities from Asia were, on average, ranked higher in environmental sustainability than others.
To begin the study, YouthfulCities conducted a survey of 2000 youth across the globe to learn what young people think, want, need and what they aspire to be. This helped create sixteen categories, including: civic participation, diversity, safety and mental health, food, public transportation, nightlife and more. These categories were grouped into three broad sections — LIVE, WORK and PLAY. Finally, dozens of indicators were assigned to each of the categories to feed the ranking process.
The LIVE theme was made up of six categories: Civic participation, Diversity, Internal transportation, Digital access, Environmental sustainability and Safety and mental health. It was organized to measure widely the livability of a given city through its tolerance, safety, openness to cultural difference, public transportation network, political culture, high-tech network and environmental standing.
The WORK theme was made up of five categories: Education access, Youth employment, Entrepreneurship, Financial access and Economic status. It was organized to measure the extent to which cities provide youth with employment prospects, sound educational opportunities and opportunities for financial growth.
The PLAY theme was made up of five categories: Food and nightlife, Music and film, Fashion and art, Regional and global connectivity and Public space, sport and gaming. It was organized to measure the leisure and recreation opportunities as well as the cultural attractions that youth have access to in a given city.
What we learned from the 2014 top performing cities is that the best cities for young people are those with a high minimum wage, a high number of entrepreneurial incubators, low accommodation cost, a diverse religious culture, those that are open to LGBT issues (through equal rights legislation for example), have free WI-Fi in public spaces, have a transit system with a high number of operating hours per week, have low cost items and services, such as groceries, movie ticket etc.
On the other hand, the bottom performing cities have high per capita carbon emissions, high average student debt, low minimum wage and high overall population, the latter resulting in the devaluation of the price of youth labor, in turn lowering wages.
It is interesting to ask ourselves whether this data and ranking actually impact the future development of cities from policymaker and activist perspective. In 2015 YouthfulCities published the second global index summary, this time including 55 cities. The results were somewhat different with New York City being the most youthful, followed by London and Berlin (Toronto came 6th). It may seem the index is simply a ranking of the most trendy cities in the western world, but what we can use from it is applicable to developing cities as well: because the cities making the top positions are the most developed, they do have a plan for themselves. May be even that they are the most developed because they have a plan for themselves.
We do know that youth are drawn to cities with advanced technology, high tolerance and opportunities for creativity and entrepreneurship[2], but what we need is for our cities to incorporate policies that foster them. The 2014 Report suggests that cities boost entrepreneurship by consulting with youth advisory boards in order to determine their needs, as well as encourage a startup business culture through business assistance programs. If legislatively possible, the amount of time it takes to turn a business idea into a reality should be minimized, helping young people evolve their ideas into practice. These suggestions seem extremely relevant, especially as far as less developed cities are concerned, because for most young people job opportunities determine which city they decide to live in. And where young people go, the dynamic of the city multiplies.
There are a lot of improvements one can think of for their city. Greener, smarter, more technologically advanced, more open and diverse, easier to commute in, more creative and competitive — all are aspects of the youth friendly and livable city and we, as citizens and as professionals should act towards making them a reality. Through initiative, collaboration and engagement we could co-create our city and make a plan for ourselves, because if we are going to stay, we are going to need more to stay for.
[1] United Nations, 2014, World Urbanization Prospects, http://esa.un.org/unpd/wup/Highlights/WUP2014-Highlights.pdf
[2] Florida, R. (2002). The rise of the creative class — and how it is transforming leisure, community and everyday life. New York: Basic Books.
