Young people and environmental affordances in urban sustainable development: insights into transport and green and publi
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Sustainable Earth
RESEARCH
Open Access
Young people and environmental affordances in urban sustainable development: insights into transport and green and public space in seven cities Sylvia Nissen1,2* , Kate Prendergast1,3, Midori Aoyagi4, Kate Burningham1, Mohammad Mehedi Hasan1,3, Bronwyn Hayward1,3, Tim Jackson1, Vimlendu Jha5, Helio Mattar6, Ingrid Schudel7, Sue Venn1 and Aya Yoshida4
Abstract Background: Cities are at the fore of sustainability challenges of the twenty-first century, and many, particularly in Asia and Africa, are predominantly youthful spaces. Understanding young people’s experiences in urban environments is therefore important as we strive to achieve both the Sustainable Development Goals and the Paris Agreement. Two amenities identified in the urban Sustainable Development Goal 11, transport and public and green space, are specifically recognised as applying to youth. Yet, there is little analysis that explicitly considers how youth experience these amenities across the Global North and South, and no current measures for understanding progress in youth experiences of green space and transport. Results: This paper provides a comparative analysis of young people’s experiences with local transport and green space in seven diverse urban communities (Christchurch, New Zealand; Dhaka, Bangladesh; Lambeth/London, UK; Makhanda, South Africa; New Delhi, India; São Paulo, Brazil; and Yokohama, Japan). Our study contributes to a growing body of literature that seeks to listen to child and youth perspectives to understand their environmental experiences. We examine the ‘affordances’ young residents aged 12 to 24 years currently associate with green space and transport amenities. Affordances are defined here as the inter-relationships between what a local environment offers young people and their perceptions and actions. Drawing on focus groups and interviews conducted with 332 young people, we identify five affordances young people associate in relation to transport and public space across these diverse urban settings: (1) social inclusion and belonging; (2) autonomy; (3) physical comfort and security; (4) relaxation and reflection; and (5) health and fitness. (Continued on next page)
* Correspondence: [email protected] 1 Centre for the Understanding of Sustainable Prosperity, University of Surrey, Guildford, UK 2 Department of Environmental Management, Lincoln University, Lincoln, New Zealand Full list of author information is available at the end of the article © The Author(s). 2020 Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit l
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