New report on young people's participation in planning and urban regeneration

Ecorys, a U.K. research firm, in collaboration with the Centre for Research in Social Policy at Loughborough University, have just published a report documenting their study of existing research on youth participation in planning and urban regeneration in the U.K. The authors examined a range of participation practices and determined that the most successful practices had a number of factors in common:

1. Official recognition of children’s fundamental rights;
2. Broad-based and inclusive partnerships;
3. Political and cultural sensitivity;
4. "Child-friendly" planning processes and structures;
5. Support from skilled intermediaries;
6. A range of participation methods;
7. Understanding participation as a process of learning and change;
8. Openness and reciprocal learning between children and adults;
9. An incremental and realistic approach;
10. Visibility in the results; and
11. Embedding at different levels and spatial scales.

"My City Too" seminar on localism, youth and the built environment

The British coalition government is working to get its Localism Bill through Parliament. Among other things, the bill would place responsibility for decisions about planning and the built environment with local authorities and communities. Open-City is hosting a seminar on youth participation and localism at London's Royal College of Physicians on March 23. Young Ambassadors from Open-City's My City Too program and local authority representatives will outline proposals to get young people involved in the localism agenda in their communities and neighborhoods.

The My City Too campaign prepares young Londoners aged 12-19 to participate in decisions about the future of their neighborhoods, boroughs and city through action research projects, monthly forums, intergenerational workshops with city planners, surveys, and even a forum for mayoral candidates in 2008.

For more information about the seminar, see Localism, Youth and the Built Environment: an Open-City knowledge-sharing seminar.

Human settlements youth summit to be held in South Africa

South African Human Settlements Minister Tokyo Sexwhale has called for a Human Settlements Youth Summit to increase youth involvement in designing future towns and cities in South Africa. On February 24 Sexwhale convened a roundtable meeting attended by over 50 leaders of South African youth organizations. A number of political and civil society organizations were also represented at the roundtable. Sexwhale told the roundtable participants,

We need young South Africans to take our vision forward, as we fully support the notion of "nothing about us without us." We want you to go back to your members and mobilise them behind the summit. We want you to prepare your thinking around this subject.

The summit is part of the Minister's Settlements 2030 Vision.

Media statement from the Human Settlements Ministry : Sexwhale calls on youth to get involved in the future of human settlements