Barriers to Empowering and Engaging Youth in Sustainable Urban Development Endeavours – Experience Gained from Korydallos Municipality, Greece
Keywords:
CLEAR model. Keywords: Smart city; Smart people and governance; Sustainable urban development; bottom-up initiatives; youth participation; barriers to youth participation; CLEAR model
Abstract
Among the key constituents in the contemporary smart city paradigm lie ‘smart people’ and ‘smart governance’, placing at the forefront community engagement and awareness raising with regards to current and emerging cities’ challenges; and the necessity for a steady interaction/cooperation between decision-making bodies and societal groups. Within such a context, youngsters, as a specific age group and the ‘citizens of tomorrow’, seem to be largely overlooked in the prevailing ‘for all’ urban policy stream. Taking this deficit into account and the need to embrace the young generation in the effort of designing a ‘smart and sustainable city strategy for all’, the focus of this work is on the identification of barriers to youth participation in local sustainable urban development processes. In fulfilling this goal, global and European evidence on this topic is explored, coupled with experiences gained by an urban environment in a less privileged urban area of Greece, Korydallos Municipality. Barriers to youth engagement identified at the global scene seem to apply to this specific urban environment too, while they are further enriched by city-specific peculiarities, emerging from the elaboration of two distinct participatory exercises and the use of the self-diagnosis CLEAR model.
References
Alexopoulos, A., Papaelias, Th., & Gasparinatos, K. (2012) The concept of participatory budgeting in local administration and its perspectives: The case of Korydallos municipality. In A. Makrydimitris, M. Stamatas, L. Maroudas, & H. Paravita (Eds.), Administration and Democracy: quality, effectiveness, legitimization. Athens: Sakkoula Publishing Company, 721-742. (in Greek)
Allegretti, U. (2006) Verso una nuova forma di democrazia: la democrazia partecipativa. democrazia e diritto, 3, 7-13.
Baycan-Levent, T., & Nijkamp, P. (2009) Planning and management of urban green spaces in Europe: Comparative analysis. Journal of Urban Planning and Development, 135(1), 1-12. DOI: 10.1061/(ASCE)0733-9488(2009)135:1(1).
Berntzen L., & Johannessen, M. (2016) The role of citizen participation in municipal smart city projects: Lessons learned from Norway. In J. Gil-Garcia, T. Pardo, & T. Nam (Eds.) Smarter as the New Urban Agenda - A Comprehensive View of the 21st Century City. Hiedelberg: Springer, 299-314.
Bishop, J. (1998) Collaboration and consensus. Town and Country Planning, 67(3), 111-114.
Brandtzaeg, P. B., Følstad, A., & Mainsah, H. N. (2012) Designing for youth civic engagement in social media. IADIS Press, Proceedings of the IADIS International Conference of Web-Based Communities and Social Media, Lisbon, Portugal, 19 - 21 July, 65-73.
Brundtland Report (1987) Our Common Future. Report of the World Commission on Environment and Development. United Nations.
Chaskin, R.J., McGregor, C., & Brady, B. (2018) Engaging urban youth: Community, citizenship, and democracy. Galway: UNESCO Child and Family Research Centre, National University of Ireland Galway.
Council of Europe (2009) CLEAR tool. European Committee on Local and Regional Democracy (CDLR), Committee of Experts on Democratic Participation and Public Ethics as Local and Regional Level (LR-DP), LR-DP(2008)9, Strasbourg, 15 February 2008.
Duraiappah, A. K., Roddy, P., & Parry, J. E. (2005) Have participatory approaches increased capabilities? Retrieved from the Website of the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD):
https://www.iisd.org/system/files/publications/economics_participatory_approaches.pdf.
European Commission – EC (2013) European youth: Participation in democratic life. Final Report, EACEA 2010/03.
European Commission & the Council of Europe – EC-CE (2015) Analytical paper on youth participation. Available at:
https://pjpeu.coe.int/documents/42128013/47261980/What+is+youth+participation.pdf/223f7d06-c766-41ea-b03c-38565efa971a.
Fishkin, S. J. (1995) The Voice of the People, Public Opinion and Democracy. New Heaven: Yale University Press.
Frank, K. I. (2006) The potential of youth participation in planning, Journal of Planning Literature, 20, 351-370.
Friedmann, J. (1987) Planning in the Public Domain: From Knowledge to Action. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/9780691214009.
Gangemi, G. (2009) Le varie forme della partecipazione. Foedus, 25, 102-126.
Garau, C. (2012) Citizen participation in public planning: A literature review. International Journal of Sciences, 1, 21-44.
Gretschel, A., Levamo, T.M., Kiilakoski T., Laine, S., Mäntylä, N., Pleyers, G., & Raisio, H. (2014) Youth participation good practices in different forms of regional and local democracy. Helsinki: Finnish Youth Research Network.
DOI:10.13140/RG.2.1.4315.0806.
Hart, D., & Atkins, R. (2002) Civic competence in urban youth. Applied Developmental Science, 6(4), 227-236. DOI: 10.1207/S1532480XADS0604_10.
Hillygus, D. S. (2005) The missing link: Exploring the relationship between higher education and political behavior. Political Behavior, 27(1), 25-47.
Lowndes, V., Pratchett, L., & Stoker, G. (2006a) Diagnosing and remedying the failings of official participation schemes: The CLEAR framework. Social Policy and Society 5(2), 281-291. DOI: 10.1017/S1474746405002988.
-----. (2006b) Locality matters: Making participation count in local politics, Institute of Public Policy Research (IPPR).
Kasmell, A., & Andersen, P.T. (2011) Measurement of community empowerment in three community programs in Rapla-Estonia. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 8, 799-817.
DOI: 10.3390/ijerph8030799.
Kiilakoski, T., & Gretschel, A. (2014) Challenging structured participation opportunities.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/335320501_Challenging_structured_participation_opportunities.
Lombardi, P. L., Giordano, S., Farouh, H. & Yousef, W. (2012) Modelling the smart city performance. Innovation - The European Journal of Social Science Research, 25(2), 137-149. DOI: 10.1080/13511610.2012.660325.
Marava, N., Alexopoulos, A. & Stratigea, A. (2019) Tracking paths to smart governance: The case of Korydallos municipality, Greece. In A. Stratigea & D. Kavroudakis (Eds.), Mediterranean cities and island communities: Smart, sustainable, inclusive and resilient, Switzerland: Springer Nature, pp. 81-112. DOI: 10.1007/978-3-319-99444-4_4.
Matthews, T. L., Hempel, L. M., & Howell, F. M. (2010) Gender and the transmission of civic engagement: Assessing the influences on youth civic activity. Sociological Inquiry, 80(3), 448-474. DOI: 10.1111/j.1475-682X.2010.00342.x.
Merkle, C. (2003) Youth participation in El Alto – Bolivia. Environment and Urbanization, 15(1), 205-214. DOI: 10.1177/095624780301500117.
Murgante, B., & Borruso, G. (2015) Smart cities in a smart world. In S. T. Rassia & P. Pardalos (Eds.), Future city architecture for optimal living, Switzerland: Springer International Publishing, 13-35.
Narksompong, J., and Limjirakan, S. (2015) Youth participation in climate change for sustainable engagement. Review of European, Comparative and International Environmental Law (RECIEL), 24(2), 171-181. DOI: 10.1111/reel.12121.
Norris, P. (1999) Critical citizens – Global support for democratic governance. Oxford University Press.
Ozcevik, O., Beygo, C., & Akcakaya, I. (2010) Building capacity through collaborative local action: Case of Matra REGIMA within Zeytinburnu Regeneration Scheme. Journal of Urban Planning and Development, 136(2), 169-175.
DOI 10.1061/(ASCE)0733-9488(2010)136:2(169).
Parnell, S. (2016) Defining a global urban development agenda. World Dev. 78, 529–540. DOI: 10.1016/j.worlddev.2015.10.028.
Rhodes, R.A.W. (1997) Understanding governance - Policy networks, governance, reflexivity and accountability. Philadelphia, PA: Open University Press.
Rio Declaration (1992) Rio Declaration on environment and development, Report of the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development, United Nations, A/CONF.151/26 (Vol. I).
Schlozman, K. L. (2002) Citizen participation in America: What do we know? Why do we care? In I. Katznelson, & H. V. Milner (Eds.), Political science: State of the Discipline New York: W.W. Norton and Co., 433–461.
Simonofski, A., Serral Asensio, E. & Wautelet, Y. (2019) Citizen participation in the design of smart cities: Methods and management framework. In A. Visvizi & M. D. Lytras (Eds.), Smart cities: Issues and challenges – Mapping Political, Social and Economic Risks and Threats, Amsterdam: Elsevier, 47-62. DOI: 10.1016/B978-0-12-816639-0.00004-1.
Spil, T.A.M., Effing, R., & Kwast J. (2017) Smart city participation: Dream or reality? A comparison of participatory strategies from Hamburg, Berlin & Enschede. In A. Kar et al. (Eds.), Digital nations – Smart cities, innovation, and sustainability. I3E 2017. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, Vol. 10595. Springer, Cham, Print DOI: 10.1007/978-3-319-68557-1_12.
Stratigea, A. (2009) Participatory planning and sustainable local development – A methodological approach, Proceedings of the 2nd National Conference of Urban and Regional Planning and Regional Development. 24-27 September (pp. 43-51) Volos, Greece (in Greek).
-----. (2012). The concept of smart cities – Towards community development? NETCOM, 26(3-4), 375-388.
-----. (2015) Theory and methods of participatory planning, Athens: Greek Academic Electronic Books. (in Greek)
Stratigea, A., Kikidou, M., Patelida, M., & Somarakis, G. (2018) Engaging citizens in planning open public space regeneration: Pedio Agora framework. Journal of Urban Planning and Development, 144(1), 1-10. DOI: 10.1061/(ASCE)UP.1943-5444.0000418.
Stratigea, A., Papadopoulou, Ch.-A. & Panagiotopoulou, M. (2015) Tools and technologies for planning the development of smart cities: A participatory methodological framework. Journal of Urban Technology, 22(2), 43-62. DOI: 10.1080/10630732. 2015.1018725.
Stratigea, Α., Somarakis, G., Panagiotopoulou, M., Katsoni, V., Marava, N., & Alexopoulos, A. (2016) Analysis of the current situation - Recording and visualisation of cultural structures and infrastructures of the Korydallos Municipality. Project DemoCU, Report I. (in Greek)
Stratigea, A., Somarakis, G., & Panagiotopoulou, M. (2017) Smartening-up communities in less-privileged urban areas – The ‘DemoCU’ participatory cultural planning experience in Korydallos – Greece municipality. In A. Stratigea, E. Kyriakides, & Ch. Nicolaides (Eds.), Smart cities in the Mediterranean - Coping with Sustainability Objectives in Small and Medium-Sized Cities and Island Communities. Switzerland: Springer Nature, 85-111.
UN-Habitat (2012) Young people, participation and sustainable development in an urbanizing world.
Retrieved from: https://unhabitat.org/sites/default/files/download-manager-files/Young%20People.pdf,
-----. (2013) Advancing youth civic engagement and human rights with young women and young men. Retrieved from: https://www.youthpolicy.org/library/wp-content/uploads/library/2013_Advancing_Youth_Civic_Engagement_Human_Rights_Eng.pdf.
White, El. S., & Mistry, R. (2016) Parent civic beliefs, civic participation, socialization practices, and child civic engagement. Applied Developmental Science, 20(1), 44-60. DOI: 10.1080/10888691.2015.1049346.
Zait, A. (2016) Exploring the role of civilizational competences for smart cities development. Transforming Government: People, Process and Policy, 11(3), 377-392. DOI: 10.1108/TG-07-2016-0044
Allegretti, U. (2006) Verso una nuova forma di democrazia: la democrazia partecipativa. democrazia e diritto, 3, 7-13.
Baycan-Levent, T., & Nijkamp, P. (2009) Planning and management of urban green spaces in Europe: Comparative analysis. Journal of Urban Planning and Development, 135(1), 1-12. DOI: 10.1061/(ASCE)0733-9488(2009)135:1(1).
Berntzen L., & Johannessen, M. (2016) The role of citizen participation in municipal smart city projects: Lessons learned from Norway. In J. Gil-Garcia, T. Pardo, & T. Nam (Eds.) Smarter as the New Urban Agenda - A Comprehensive View of the 21st Century City. Hiedelberg: Springer, 299-314.
Bishop, J. (1998) Collaboration and consensus. Town and Country Planning, 67(3), 111-114.
Brandtzaeg, P. B., Følstad, A., & Mainsah, H. N. (2012) Designing for youth civic engagement in social media. IADIS Press, Proceedings of the IADIS International Conference of Web-Based Communities and Social Media, Lisbon, Portugal, 19 - 21 July, 65-73.
Brundtland Report (1987) Our Common Future. Report of the World Commission on Environment and Development. United Nations.
Chaskin, R.J., McGregor, C., & Brady, B. (2018) Engaging urban youth: Community, citizenship, and democracy. Galway: UNESCO Child and Family Research Centre, National University of Ireland Galway.
Council of Europe (2009) CLEAR tool. European Committee on Local and Regional Democracy (CDLR), Committee of Experts on Democratic Participation and Public Ethics as Local and Regional Level (LR-DP), LR-DP(2008)9, Strasbourg, 15 February 2008.
Duraiappah, A. K., Roddy, P., & Parry, J. E. (2005) Have participatory approaches increased capabilities? Retrieved from the Website of the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD):
https://www.iisd.org/system/files/publications/economics_participatory_approaches.pdf.
European Commission – EC (2013) European youth: Participation in democratic life. Final Report, EACEA 2010/03.
European Commission & the Council of Europe – EC-CE (2015) Analytical paper on youth participation. Available at:
https://pjpeu.coe.int/documents/42128013/47261980/What+is+youth+participation.pdf/223f7d06-c766-41ea-b03c-38565efa971a.
Fishkin, S. J. (1995) The Voice of the People, Public Opinion and Democracy. New Heaven: Yale University Press.
Frank, K. I. (2006) The potential of youth participation in planning, Journal of Planning Literature, 20, 351-370.
Friedmann, J. (1987) Planning in the Public Domain: From Knowledge to Action. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/9780691214009.
Gangemi, G. (2009) Le varie forme della partecipazione. Foedus, 25, 102-126.
Garau, C. (2012) Citizen participation in public planning: A literature review. International Journal of Sciences, 1, 21-44.
Gretschel, A., Levamo, T.M., Kiilakoski T., Laine, S., Mäntylä, N., Pleyers, G., & Raisio, H. (2014) Youth participation good practices in different forms of regional and local democracy. Helsinki: Finnish Youth Research Network.
DOI:10.13140/RG.2.1.4315.0806.
Hart, D., & Atkins, R. (2002) Civic competence in urban youth. Applied Developmental Science, 6(4), 227-236. DOI: 10.1207/S1532480XADS0604_10.
Hillygus, D. S. (2005) The missing link: Exploring the relationship between higher education and political behavior. Political Behavior, 27(1), 25-47.
Lowndes, V., Pratchett, L., & Stoker, G. (2006a) Diagnosing and remedying the failings of official participation schemes: The CLEAR framework. Social Policy and Society 5(2), 281-291. DOI: 10.1017/S1474746405002988.
-----. (2006b) Locality matters: Making participation count in local politics, Institute of Public Policy Research (IPPR).
Kasmell, A., & Andersen, P.T. (2011) Measurement of community empowerment in three community programs in Rapla-Estonia. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 8, 799-817.
DOI: 10.3390/ijerph8030799.
Kiilakoski, T., & Gretschel, A. (2014) Challenging structured participation opportunities.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/335320501_Challenging_structured_participation_opportunities.
Lombardi, P. L., Giordano, S., Farouh, H. & Yousef, W. (2012) Modelling the smart city performance. Innovation - The European Journal of Social Science Research, 25(2), 137-149. DOI: 10.1080/13511610.2012.660325.
Marava, N., Alexopoulos, A. & Stratigea, A. (2019) Tracking paths to smart governance: The case of Korydallos municipality, Greece. In A. Stratigea & D. Kavroudakis (Eds.), Mediterranean cities and island communities: Smart, sustainable, inclusive and resilient, Switzerland: Springer Nature, pp. 81-112. DOI: 10.1007/978-3-319-99444-4_4.
Matthews, T. L., Hempel, L. M., & Howell, F. M. (2010) Gender and the transmission of civic engagement: Assessing the influences on youth civic activity. Sociological Inquiry, 80(3), 448-474. DOI: 10.1111/j.1475-682X.2010.00342.x.
Merkle, C. (2003) Youth participation in El Alto – Bolivia. Environment and Urbanization, 15(1), 205-214. DOI: 10.1177/095624780301500117.
Murgante, B., & Borruso, G. (2015) Smart cities in a smart world. In S. T. Rassia & P. Pardalos (Eds.), Future city architecture for optimal living, Switzerland: Springer International Publishing, 13-35.
Narksompong, J., and Limjirakan, S. (2015) Youth participation in climate change for sustainable engagement. Review of European, Comparative and International Environmental Law (RECIEL), 24(2), 171-181. DOI: 10.1111/reel.12121.
Norris, P. (1999) Critical citizens – Global support for democratic governance. Oxford University Press.
Ozcevik, O., Beygo, C., & Akcakaya, I. (2010) Building capacity through collaborative local action: Case of Matra REGIMA within Zeytinburnu Regeneration Scheme. Journal of Urban Planning and Development, 136(2), 169-175.
DOI 10.1061/(ASCE)0733-9488(2010)136:2(169).
Parnell, S. (2016) Defining a global urban development agenda. World Dev. 78, 529–540. DOI: 10.1016/j.worlddev.2015.10.028.
Rhodes, R.A.W. (1997) Understanding governance - Policy networks, governance, reflexivity and accountability. Philadelphia, PA: Open University Press.
Rio Declaration (1992) Rio Declaration on environment and development, Report of the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development, United Nations, A/CONF.151/26 (Vol. I).
Schlozman, K. L. (2002) Citizen participation in America: What do we know? Why do we care? In I. Katznelson, & H. V. Milner (Eds.), Political science: State of the Discipline New York: W.W. Norton and Co., 433–461.
Simonofski, A., Serral Asensio, E. & Wautelet, Y. (2019) Citizen participation in the design of smart cities: Methods and management framework. In A. Visvizi & M. D. Lytras (Eds.), Smart cities: Issues and challenges – Mapping Political, Social and Economic Risks and Threats, Amsterdam: Elsevier, 47-62. DOI: 10.1016/B978-0-12-816639-0.00004-1.
Spil, T.A.M., Effing, R., & Kwast J. (2017) Smart city participation: Dream or reality? A comparison of participatory strategies from Hamburg, Berlin & Enschede. In A. Kar et al. (Eds.), Digital nations – Smart cities, innovation, and sustainability. I3E 2017. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, Vol. 10595. Springer, Cham, Print DOI: 10.1007/978-3-319-68557-1_12.
Stratigea, A. (2009) Participatory planning and sustainable local development – A methodological approach, Proceedings of the 2nd National Conference of Urban and Regional Planning and Regional Development. 24-27 September (pp. 43-51) Volos, Greece (in Greek).
-----. (2012). The concept of smart cities – Towards community development? NETCOM, 26(3-4), 375-388.
-----. (2015) Theory and methods of participatory planning, Athens: Greek Academic Electronic Books. (in Greek)
Stratigea, A., Kikidou, M., Patelida, M., & Somarakis, G. (2018) Engaging citizens in planning open public space regeneration: Pedio Agora framework. Journal of Urban Planning and Development, 144(1), 1-10. DOI: 10.1061/(ASCE)UP.1943-5444.0000418.
Stratigea, A., Papadopoulou, Ch.-A. & Panagiotopoulou, M. (2015) Tools and technologies for planning the development of smart cities: A participatory methodological framework. Journal of Urban Technology, 22(2), 43-62. DOI: 10.1080/10630732. 2015.1018725.
Stratigea, Α., Somarakis, G., Panagiotopoulou, M., Katsoni, V., Marava, N., & Alexopoulos, A. (2016) Analysis of the current situation - Recording and visualisation of cultural structures and infrastructures of the Korydallos Municipality. Project DemoCU, Report I. (in Greek)
Stratigea, A., Somarakis, G., & Panagiotopoulou, M. (2017) Smartening-up communities in less-privileged urban areas – The ‘DemoCU’ participatory cultural planning experience in Korydallos – Greece municipality. In A. Stratigea, E. Kyriakides, & Ch. Nicolaides (Eds.), Smart cities in the Mediterranean - Coping with Sustainability Objectives in Small and Medium-Sized Cities and Island Communities. Switzerland: Springer Nature, 85-111.
UN-Habitat (2012) Young people, participation and sustainable development in an urbanizing world.
Retrieved from: https://unhabitat.org/sites/default/files/download-manager-files/Young%20People.pdf,
-----. (2013) Advancing youth civic engagement and human rights with young women and young men. Retrieved from: https://www.youthpolicy.org/library/wp-content/uploads/library/2013_Advancing_Youth_Civic_Engagement_Human_Rights_Eng.pdf.
White, El. S., & Mistry, R. (2016) Parent civic beliefs, civic participation, socialization practices, and child civic engagement. Applied Developmental Science, 20(1), 44-60. DOI: 10.1080/10888691.2015.1049346.
Zait, A. (2016) Exploring the role of civilizational competences for smart cities development. Transforming Government: People, Process and Policy, 11(3), 377-392. DOI: 10.1108/TG-07-2016-0044
Published
2021-03-26
Section
Articles
Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:
- The contributor(s) (authors) warrant that the entire work is original and unpublished; it is submitted only to this Journal and all text, data, figures/tables or other illustrations included in this work are completely original and unpublished, and these have not been previously published or submitted elsewhere in any form or media whatsoever.
- The contributor(s) warrant that the work contains no unlawful or libelous statements and opinions and liable materials of any kind whatsoever, does not infringe on any copyrights, intellectual property rights, personal rights or rights of any kind of others, nor contains any plagiarized, fraudulent, improperly attributed materials, instructions, procedures, information or ideas that might cause any harm, damage, injury, losses or costs of any kind to person or property.
- The contributor(s) retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.
- The contributor(s) are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.
- The contributor(s) are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work (See The Effect of Open Access).
- Geography Research Forum may disseminate the content of the publications and publications’ Meta data in text, image, or other print and electronic formats to providers of research databases (e.g. EBSCO, GeoBase, JSTOR) to facilitate publications' exposure.
