Defining Their Right to the City: Perspectives from Lower-Income Youth

Abstract

In their desire to revitalize their cities, local government leaders actively promote private development without equal attention to the ways all residents—and not just those with financial means—live their daily lives. To the lower-income teenager with little spendable money, the privatization of public spaces, the lack-of-funding driven demise of public pools and recreation centers, curfews that limit the times when teens can be out, posted restrictions on where they can be and what they can do while there, and not infrequent negative interactions with law enforcement make cities seem almost hostile. Using qualitative data collected through interviews in 2014 and 2018, this article discovers how teenagers perceive their right to the city. The words of the adolescents make clear that their vision of a just city includes not only the fair use of physical spaces but also a place that gives them the right to mature into healthy, well-educated, and financially secure adults.