Planning with Youth: Research on the participation of youth in sustainable spatial planning
This blog reports stories from the Youth Plan project team, based at Södertörn University in Flemingsberg, Stockholm. On this platform, our international team of researchers, artists and educators post texts about urban governance, youth participation, social- and environmental justice and sustainable urban futures.
Welcome to the blog of the Youth Plan project team, bringing together researchers from across Sweden (Södertörn University, KTH Royal Institute of Technology), Denmark (the University of Copenhagen), the Netherlands (the University of Wageningen), and Canada (the University of Winnipeg). Our diverse and interdisciplinary group specialises in areas such as environmental science, environmental governance, social learning, landscape architecture, planning, human-nature interactions, ecosystem services, urban ecology, media technology and interaction design.
In the research project Planning with Youth, we explore how participatory processes can support a meaningful engagement of youth in sustainable spatial planning — with the overarching goal to create space and voice to young people aged 13–18 years in ethnically diverse communities.
Voices of youth are often missing in planning
Creating space to youth in planning is very important. Youth bear the consequences of decisions others have already taken, and will continue to do so in the long-term. Therefore, their voices must be heard. However, youth and their preferences for urban nature and public places do not feature very prominently in spatial planning. This despite a widely shared agreement that it is important to recognize the diversity of needs and values which so much characterizes our cities. How to pursue inclusivity in this context remains a challenging task.
The emerging youth movement, with demands for policy action and for more sustainable futures, signals for an increased concern for social- and environmental injustices in the younger demographic group. Planners and experts lament of youth not coming to public town meetings and consultations — events that are meant to open planning to the general public.
One question we ask in this project is: why is it so? Are young people finding such events inaccessible and/or uninteresting, not tailored to the topics that matter to them? Or, are they feeling out of place at participatory events planners and other experts organise?
A framework for youth participation in planning
Research on meaningful engagement in participatory spatial planning is an emerging area of work. However, there is still substantial uncertainty about which participatory tools best support planners in their interactions with youth, and how such tools allow youth to express their needs, preferences and visions.
We aim to address some of these challenges by developing a framework for youth participation. Researchers, artists and educators will work together with youth to explore creative and accessible options for the inclusion of young people in participatory planning and in the design of urban space.
As part to this project we will:
- Test and compare alternative participatory tools for the engagement of youth in planning
- Formulate recommendations in the form of support tools for policy and practice in this area of work
This project operates within the Scandinavian geographical context, but the results will have broader relevance for theory and practice in other geographic areas as well.
For more information on our group, please visit the Universities of Södertörn, Copenhagen, Wageningen, Winnipeg and the Royal Institute of Technology websites.
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Planning with Youth is funded by FORMAS, the Swedish Research Council for Sustainable Development (the Sustainable Spatial Planning Program).
