Urban spaces for young people

Young people actively make their own spaces, regardless of whether these are physical or virtual, public or private. Using a resources-centred perspective and participative methods involving young people, the project will investigate the changes in the way young people use spaces and in the importance they attach to them. Work will focus on the configuration and use options of a selection of urban spaces/places during the different phases of the measures taken to combat the pandemic. The findings will be used for sustainable urban development processes in the context of additional collaboration with urban development professionals. The project will also work with an interdisciplinary sounding board to facilitate scientific discussion of the research.

The coronavirus pandemic and the measures taken to control it had a substantial impact on young people’s lives. At the same time, their needs had to take a back seat to the necessity of protecting vulnerable groups. Urban spaces are tremendously important to young people in general. However, under pandemic conditions their importance changed dramatically in some respects. Furthermore, young people’s relationship with urban spaces generally receives attention only when conflicts arise.

The project will pursue scientific and real world-centred aims. The research team aims to better understand the actions and needs of young people in certain urban locations and gain deeper insight into the significance of urban spaces for their pandemic resilience. Thus they will deliver groundwork for the sustainable, pandemic-resilient configuration of urban spaces and for participatory configuration processes. The young people will experience self-efficacy by cooperating with professionals.

Involving young people in the entire research process holds out the prospect of deeper insights into the research area than is possible with studies “about young people”. The involvement of urban development professionals will embed them within an urban development framework. Analysing the various stages of the pandemic should deliver information about the pandemic resilience of urban areas and their significance for young people’s pandemic resilience.

One of the project’s goals is to develop basic principles for the sustainable and pandemic-resilient design of urban spaces as well as for participatory design processes. Collaboration with professionals across the entire duration of the project will ensure that these principles are adaptable to urban development practice. In some cases, findings may be incorporated into on-site activities while the project is still ongoing.

Pandemic-resilient Spaces for Sustainable Cities - Urban Places for the Pandemic Resilience of Young People. A transformative research project.

The publications of the project can be found in the SNSF Data Portal.