Vancouver Working Group Discussion Paper

The Youthful City

Chapter 4: The Liveable City

How young people are creating more sustainable, accessible, and inclusive urban environments

Governments, according to their strategies, should take measures to establish procedures allowing for consultation and possible participation of youth of both genders ... in decision-making processes with regard to the environment, involving youth at the local, national and regional levels.

Agenda 21, Paragraph 25.9a

"The idea of participation is based on our conviction that young people themselves are the best resource for promoting their development."

Ananthakrishnan, Chief, Partners & Youth Section, UN-HABITAT

The Livable City encompasses both the physical and social environment as it relates to its citizens. The livability of city can be defined as the relationship between the abundance or deprivation of its physical and social assets, and the social process which govern how and where these assets are distributed amongst its citizenry. This social process is represented by three guiding principles: (1) accessibility, (2) equity and (3) participation. Together, these principles represent a dynamic process that determines whether citizens indeed have equal access to their resources, as well as an equitable role in city planning, decision-making, and policy-making. Citizens globally have varying degrees of access to participatory processes in city governance.

Children and youth are in a unique position. From a developmental perspective, their need for an adequate and an appropriate physical and social environment are greatest. As young citizens, however, their basic needs and resources are regulated by and through others (e.g. families, community). They do not enjoy a direct relationship to the system which allocates the often scarce assets of a city. Young people are often not treated equitably, their civic engagement limited due to their age. Nevertheless, we have found that when children and youth are given an opportunity to have a more dominant role in meeting key physical and social needs, the result is more sustainable environments, and livable cities.

This chapter will examine some of the dynamic and progressive actions of young people around the world who are driving innovative responses to the alleviation of poverty, pollution, and inequality, at a local level. They demonstrate that rather than being vulnerable populations, children and youth can be, and are, true and equitable partners in creating livable cities.

The chapter examines the involvement of child and youth in creating livable cities through five key issue areas:

Livability – Water & sanitation
Livability – Food security & greenspace
Livability – Sustainable technology & innovation
Livability – Transportation planning & development
Livability – Going 'Glocal'

Livability – Water & Sanitation

'We have lots of problems with water. Sometimes we don't get water sometimes we get it. It often only comes for twenty minutes. Because of my water problem, I can't go anywhere in the evening to play. My dream: water in the morning'.

-Swapna, age 12, India

Many people in cities, especially those populations most marginalized, experience a constant struggle to access basic needs. For example, one of the greatest threats facing children and youth in developing countries, and even in developed countries, is lack of water. Particularly in isolated communities and urban slums, populations struggle with issues of water quality and inadequate or inaccessible water supplies. This deprivation poses a serious threat to children and youth who, at a critical stage of stage of their growth and development, are most susceptible to life-threatening diseases that can be prevented by improving water quality and proper sanitation. It is estimated that improvements in water supply, and particularly sanitation and hygiene, can reduce the incidence of diarrhea by 22% and resulting deaths by 65%. Children living in poor urban areas also suffer disproportionately from inadequate water supply. Often, women and girls bear the greatest responsibility in expending time and energy to collect water from distant sources.

Globally, responsibility to provide children with the basic right to access adequate water supplies lies foremost with local governments. As per the commitment made by World State Parties for the coming decade in a world fit for Children there is a commitment to reduce the 'proportion of households without access to hygienic sanitation facilitation and affordable and safe drinking water by at least one third.' In reality, access and distribution of appropriate water supplies often reflect complex economic, social and political priorities. Given this interdependent context of priority setting, power and influence, children's capacity to effect change may seem limited. The stories in this section, however, demonstrate that children can play an influential and persuasive role in bringing to the attention of municipalities their right to access water. Young people further display a remarkable ability to educate their community and peers about hygiene and sanitation, as illustrated in the story below.

Earth's grand-children, Venezuela

In the shanty-towns of the big city, Maracaibo, a group of Wayuu children, seeing that their community was being ravaged by diarrhea, put together a puppet play to present basic health information to their peers and mothers. With the technical advice from health service providers, they developed skits with simple information such as how children needed to be fed, kept clean and how to treat diarrhea. Elmis, 14, an initiator of the children's group, attributes the success of the plays to the fact that information is presented in a fun way, and adapted to their reality. Within a year, the children made over 50 presentations in and around their community. The municipality health officials claim that mortality rates were reduced by half that year. It was realized that children have an incomparable capacity to diffuse information and can improve health conditions. A number of children's committees took on health as their major issue; they became known as the "health lookouts", in Wayunaikii, Suluin Maa, meaning Earth's grandchildren.

Livability – Food security & greenspace

A proper diet is necessary for the healthy development of children and youth. Providing adequate household food security is central to ensuring sustained improvements in the nutritional well-being of children and families. The development of a child and a youth also depends on their physical environment. Access to parks and greenspace are considered to be a key condition for the social and mental health of children. Research shows that the emotional security and trust in the world is rooted not only in a child's relationships with other people but in the security, familiarity and predictability of their physical environment. Children need to have access to spaces within cities where they feel comfortable.

Local food and greenspace are often viewed as the antithesis of what defines a city. Cities are concrete spaces in which people import their food from outside city borders, and places where people become disconnected from their natural environments. Far from being detached citizens, young people are often intimately connected to their environments and, as the following stories suggest, are at the forefront of preserving food supplies and creating safer, healthier living spaces. For many young people, cities are not monolithic structures, but localized communities in which they learn, play, create and build their capacities. One such vital space is the Strathcona and Cottonwood Community Gardens in the downtown Eastside of Vancouver.

Environmental Youth Alliance Youth Garden, Vancouver

Land to grow food is as precious as the air we breathe and the water we drink to the vast majority of people who inhibit this planet. Having a small plot to grow vegetables in lean times can save your life and provide human dignity. Human displacement from the land world wide, including Canada, has resulted in our bursting cities where land is elusive to the young & the poor. For a young person to have control over a piece of land here is unheard of. Even in these circumstances people will go to extreme lengths to seek out pockets of soil to plant a seed whether they own the land or not.

The EYA Youth Garden was born from the extremely successful Strathcona Community Garden. The Strathcona Community Garden began to till the soil in 1985, and through numerous battles with city officials who owned the land, displacement, and massive organizing efforts by the local community they gained a legal lease for 3.5 acres of land to grow food on small plots in inner city Vancouver. This lease was expanded in 1993 to include the EYA Youth Garden & the Cottonwood Garden site for a grand total of 7 acres, an unprecedented size for local food, grown by a group of low-income residents in the poorest neighbourhood in Canada. A Community Garden revolution in Vancouver and their eventual acceptance at the government level has resulted.

Youth were an absolute cornerstone to the extension of the Garden to 7 acres. The Strathcona Garden was full and they pointed the EYA youth in the direction of a brambled garbage heap and said, "no one's using that, why don't you start there ... " Though the land was owned by the city's Engineering Department, it was not being used. So, with a leap of faith, a team of EYA Youth tilled the soil, planted seeds, and learned from the Strathcona "mother garden".

The Youth Garden has acted as a food system training ground & ecological oasis ever since, where hundreds of children and youth have learned the basics of food growing & stewarding with Mother Nature. The youth harvest what they grow, often share meals, make medicines, grow and collect seed for other low income gardeners, schools, and next years crop. They learn the cycles of life, that nothing tastes better than something ripe from the vine, and that the act of growing food has a revolutionary effect that never goes away.

Here, the land is controlled by youth and nature, an indominable combination that has resulted in one of the most successful community development examples in Vancouver. The success of the Youth Garden has spun off into numerous initiatives city wide that include youth roof top gardens, nursery depots, and micro-enterprise developments. For youth the City seems livable, with your boots in the soil and your hands harvesting food from your own plot of land.

Livability – Sustainable technology & innovation

A livable city is one that finds sustainable solutions to preserving clean air, water, and other natural resources as well as provides for energy-efficient solutions to meet the basic needs of citizens. While such innovation may seem beyond a young person's capacity, we find that children and youth are deeply committed to their environments, finding ingenious ways to preserve the healthy state of their cities. Two youth from South Africa have demonstrated such capacity by producing solar-powered food cookers and 'wonder boxes'. Their innovation not only helps the environment but also provides a potential source for revenue generation.

Solar Cookers and Wonder Boxes, South Africa

Azola Lingani is 13 years old and lives in Ndyebo, South Africa. Azola's home community of Port Elizabeth is faced with unemployment and environmental degradation. Azola, working with her school Eco-club has come up with an invention: a solar cooker and 'wonderbox' that provides a source for employment and environmental sustainability. A 'wonderbox' is a type of insulated box that can be used to cook food and the solar cooker has a reflective surface that is used to cook food with the sun's heat.

Along with club members, Azola reaches out to her community by selling the wonderbox for 30 rand ($6 Cdn) and solar cooker for 25 rand ($5 Cdn) as an inexpensive and healthy alternative to using electricity. Working in partnership with her classmates and teacher, Azola has developed a sustainable environmental strategy that is practical and based on the local needs and assets of the community. Through such partnership, young people can fully engage in improving their livelihoods.

Azola's experiential engagement is an inclusive participatory model of engagement that needs to be recognized, researched and sustained, if children and youth are to be equally involved in improving the livability of communities.

Livability – Transportation planning & development

Transportation systems affect the quality of our lives in many ways beyond the time we spend commuting. The efficiency of the local and regional transportation systems can affect the quality of the air we breathe, the safety of our children, how we spend our leisure time, and the ways in which we access services and local communities. City planners need to ensure transportation systems meet the needs of children and youth while avoiding the danger of traffic as a major obstacle to children's safety. In numerous countries, traffic accidents are the leading cause of death for young people.

Prince George Public Interest Group (PGPIG), Prince George, Canada

In British Columbia, a local and national youth group has taken on the challenge of involving youth meaningfully in policy deliberations in support of sustainable transportation. In 2002, youth groups from a local university in the town of Prince George began a participatory process to engage youth and the general public in discussing transportation issues in the upcoming municipal elections.

Supported by Youth Action Effecting Change (YAEC), a national youth capacity building network, students from the PGPIRG and partners set out to create a forum that would bring local citizens and municipal candidates together for meaningful democratic exchange. They chose to forgo the traditional political forum, and brought the community, candidates and city staff together around tables to discuss issues concerning sustainable transportation. Through a youth-facilitated process, which incorporated the participatory tool of community mapping, the forum was a great success. Some 17 of 22 election candidates were in attendance along with close to 50 community and youth participants. A positive and effective relationship was established between the students, the community and incoming councilors. Following the forum, students and the community remain involved in formal policy processes, and are consulted in the design of Prince George's transportation system. PGPIRG is a strong example of how a youth group can initiate community-based participatory process that support formal processes of local government.

Livability - Going Glocal

For many years, an important concept promoted by social justice activists, environmentalists and others working at the grassroots to create more livable cities has been: "think globally, act locally." While this idea remains powerful, a number of more recent initiatives (such as the World Social Forum) have been predicated on a related but much more all-encompassing concept: think and act, locally and globally.

Growing Up in Cities is one such "glocal" effort that is focused specifically on understanding and responding to the needs of young people in cities. Working across sectors and disciplines, the project seeks to promote a more integrated, holistic and participatory approach to community evaluation and change through processes that engage young people as real partners. It also seeks to develop a stronger research basis for documenting the quality of life of young people in cities - from their own perspective - and the impacts that increased globalization and social, political, and economic change are having on local cultures and lives. The project has its roots in the 1970s, when urban planner Kevin Lynch directed a fourcountry research effort under the auspices of UNESCO to try and understand young people's experience of urbanization as the basis for more child friendly urban policy and planning. However, interest was significantly greater in the 1990s when Dr. Louise Chawla, revived the project. Growing Up in Cities achieved new relevance as a practical strategy for local implementation of these global policy documents, as well as an important global research project for informing ongoing policy making.

Since 1996, the global action-research project has engaged people from across a range of disciplines (urban planning, public policy, youth development, anthropology, sociology, architecture, landscape architecture, etc.) and from multiple sectors (government, NGOs and universities) in 16 countries to date, including Argentina, Australia, Canada, Cook Islands, India, Jordan, Lebanon, Norway, Papua New Guinea, Poland, South Africa, Sweden, UK, USA, Venezuela, and Vietnam.

Because the project's local outcomes are based on the priorities identified by local children and youth, the types of actions undertaken have varied widely across sites. For example:

In Buenos Aires, Argentina, where the project worked in a working class district near the port, outcomes included a toy lending library, a photography exhibit, and a hands-on design workshop for an abandoned property.
In Johannesburg, South Africa, where the project worked with a squatter community that was forcibly relocated, outcomes included a workshop hosted by the Mayor to draw attention to the perspectives and needs of young people in squatter settlements, a children's crèche and play area, and a participatory video broadcast on a national network as part of an intensive lobbying effort to ensure that government promises for services were delivered.
In Melbourne, Australia, where the project worked in a working class suburb, outcomes included an effort to counter the negative stereotypes of youth in the local and national media, and a participatory design process to enhance safety and access on a neglected pathway connecting the local neighborhood to an adjacent area.

Over the years, many national and international donors have contributed to the project's development under the leadership of UNESCO, including UNICEF, NORAD (the Norwegian Aid Agency) and the Johan Jacobs Foundation. Local project sites have also been supported by a wide array of municipal and nongovernmental agencies. Most recently, a new country-wide effort in Canada is being supported by Social Development Department Canada along with five national and regional partners.

As a global project working at the grassroots, GUIC has been an effective model for implementation of national and international policy. It has contributed valuable data and insights leading to more informed and responsive policy making at the local, national and international levels. Most importantly, it has helped make a difference in the lives of young people by helping them make a difference in their communities.

Conclusion

As we have seen in through examples in this chapter, children and youth bring creativity, energy, lived experience, and practical, localized knowledge to the creation of more livable cities. Children and youth are not content to compartmentalize their experience of city life. For young people, public spaces provide opportunities to learn, create, explore, imagine, play, and preserve their connection to the natural environment. Children and youth are actively involved in creating richer green spaces, ensuring food security, and finding innovative ways to preserve sustainable energies, address unemployment issues and build their capacities.

<< previous | next >>