What can we do differently today, to make our cities safer for young people tomorrow?
The Child in the City World Conference 2023 witnessed some thought-provoking ideas about how urban planners are engaging with young people to create better, safer environments.
An illuminating example of this was the work being done by the SafeandSound Cities programme in urban settings across the world.
Architect and urban planner Sedaile Mejias is a senior project leader with BUUR Part of Sweco, a Belgium-based multidisciplinary research, urban planning and design team. In this article written for Child in the City, she explains the principles behind the work:
“Cities are places where different people, generations, communities have been living together successfully, from a social and cultural perspective.
“In spite of this, cities are challenged in their representational capacities and sense of inclusivity and liveability. Often, when they lack environmental qualities there is a reduction of places and references that youth can relate to.
“Despite the inclusive nature of cities, young people’s voices are not always included in decision making at the city level. On the other hand, professionals and decision makers in charge of the planning and design of cities have difficulties to set up youth-focused participation processes.
“As strategic partner and global advisor, BUUR Part of Sweco has been in charge of the global outreach and advocacy of the S2Cities Programme. The Safe andSound Cities Programme aims to improve young people’s safety and wellbeing in urban environments. BUUR’s role has also been focused in providing technical assistance in ‘Placemaking’ to the programme’s local partners, in order to ensure a better frame for the programme implementation.
“Within this context, we brought the experience of one of the programme’s local partners together with recent youth-centred policies promoted in Brussels, during the 11th Child in the City conference “Building the future” that took place in November 2023 (image below).
S2Cities Programme
“The Safe and Sound Cities Programme aims to improve young people’s safety and wellbeing in urban environments. Funded by Foundation Botnar and managed by Global Infrastructure Basel Foundation, the programme focuses on young people between the ages of 15 and 24. It engages local governments, institutions,
private sector and community actors in the creation of platforms for meaningful youth engagement as well as for the implementation of solutions to urban safety challenges.
“Six main principles (urban safety, relational approach to wellbeing, innovation, co-creation, placemaking and participatory decision-making) act as the programme’s implementation main drivers. These principles can be approached in four different steps: Understanding Systems; Building Capacities; Catalyzing Innovation and Scaling Systems.
“Nowadays, the programme has been implemented in six different cities in South East Asia and South America. Across all cities, the programme has engaged more than 4,000 young people to meaningfully participate in the making of safer cities by co-creating solutions with other urban actors after customising to the local safety concerns of local young people and implementing these solutions to benefit the city as a whole. By end of 2023, the programme had achieved in supporting young people through piloting some 17 youth-led initiatives focused on bringing safety and wellbeing to themselves and their peers in their cities.
“The session “Shaping urban governance with youth” started with a focus on the youth in the Ecuadorian cities of Cuenca and Ambato. The local partner Huasipichanga showcased the evidence gathered from the perspective of youth related to safety which has been fundamental in the implementation of the programme, because it portrays the interrelations of safety issues which affect young people living in these cities as well as their root causes.
“These findings are the outcome of a collective exercise of mapping for system understanding that identified the hardware (places), software (activities) and orgware (stakeholders) of both cities, as part of a much larger Placemaking trajectory that constitutes the technical core of the Programme implementation.
“In Cuenca, 40 per cent of young people between 14-24 years are scared of leaving their homes due to three main types of safety issues: armed violence (7.5 per cent); car/traffic accidents (7.5 per cent) and self-depression (25 per cent). In this context, one of the greatest challenges is addressing these safety issues to ensure environmental and urban conditions that enable a better relational frame.
Policies of this kind could translate into urban planning processes that lead to a restorative urbanism, and that centres mental and physical health, wellness and quality of life into the urban design practice
“The evidence gathered demonstrates how sustaining isolation among children and young people can negatively impact their mood and overall well-being. Moreover, it recalls the importance of policies for the development of urban space that focus on health and well-being of the young population, that are rooted in principles of sustainability, participation and co-creation; and that address the construction of their relational well-being within a framework of low environmental impact at the global level. Policies of this kind could translate into urban planning processes that lead to a restorative urbanism, and that centres mental and physical health, wellness and quality of life into the urban design practice.
Introducing Brussels’ case
“The session zoomed in as well on Brussels, as an example of inclusive approaches to plan and design cities with and for the younger population. AnaĂŻs Maes, Alderwoman of Town Planning and Public Spaces, illustrated by means of three examples public space development with a gender perspective: from furniture oriented that stimulates conversation, through green featured and potable-water accessible spaces to spaces tailored to children. The projects Klavertje 4, Nieuwe Graanmarkt and Place Marsupilami are attempts to create awareness as well as commitments to young girls and the presence of women in public space.
“The session closed with a spotlight on the importance of youth empowerment being embedded structurally in urban policies. Astrid Begenyeza, project lead of the Youth Coalition project, introduced the six youth representatives of the Youth Coalition. They presented a snapshot of the 18 solutions that the 100 members of the Youth Coalition debated and drafted during two weeks in September 2023, culminating in the presentation to the Ministers of the Brussels Region as well as civil leaders.
“The two-week workshop has been grouped in six different commissions: The Commission on Social cohesion, Young people and Communities; 2. The Commission on Brussels’ Identity and Culture; 3. The Commission on Mobility; 4. The Commission on Climate and Nature; 5. The Commission on Living Conditions and Urban Planning (Urbanism) 6. The Commission on Security in Brussels.
“The outcomes of the consultations have been drafted in a manifesto, identifying four clear objectives for Brussels to deserve its nomination for European Capital of Culture in 2030: Accessible mobility by strengthening and expanding in an affordable manner the modii offer. A local-by-design built-up environment: from carbon neutral to carbon negative. A safer and inclusive city: in regards to the police force and gender perspective. A focus on education and the involvement of parents: by better informing them about their children education system.
“The session successfully showed the common strength between cities that put youth central in the city making. As global placemaking experts in the S2 Cities programme, we support younger generations on being drivers for better change by advocating for a more meaningful participation in the shaping of designed, innovative and implementable solutions to the urban safety challenges of nowadays.
Usually, everything we plan and build in cities should last for generations.
“In this sense, there is no over-investment in turning investment to the youngest part of the population by means of co-creative and concrete methods of participation. This could turn into a slightly adapted approaches to urban planning in relation to children and young people with a focus on sustainability.
“Recent practices in citizens’ participation and urban inclusion, as well as in co- creation and coalition building in cities nearby have represented a huge knowledge lift, in which national agencies had to educate themselves and in return educate others to cope with the new challenges. More concretely, the city of Stockholm in Sweden and the United Kingdom Parliament have incorporated children and young population perspectives into city planning by means of assessing and inquiring about their relation with the built environment.
“By asking questions about how children and young people can use outside public spaces, move around and interact with their neighbourhoods, youth organisations will better understand how young people can be active and be a visible part of their communities. The S2 cities program also facilitates local authorities and city makers, to define a role in planning the built environment that copes with the
needs of its younger generations.
“Building healthy cities for the next generation comes with ensuring liveable, resilient, healthy, accessible, child-friendly and sustainable urban spaces.”
Sedaile Mejias is an urban planner and architect, and senior project leader at BUUR Part of Sweco, a Belgium-based multidisciplinary research, urban planning and design team. Sedaile was part of a team which participated in last year’s Child in the City World Conference in Brussels, in the panel session ‘Allowing youth representatives and experts working with youth’.
