Young People and Urban Public Space in Australia-Creating Pathways to Community, Belonging and Inclusion

Abstract

Cities and urban spaces around the world are changing rapidly from their origins in the industrialising world to a post-industrial, hard wired surveillance landscape. This kind of monitoring and surveillance connects with attempts by civic authorities to rebrand urban public spaces into governable and predictable arenas of consumption. In this context of control, a number of groups are excluded from public space, such as some children and young people. This article discusses the surveillance, governance and control of public space environments used by children and young people in particular, and the capacity for their ongoing displacement and marginality, as well as possible greater inclusion.

The National Disability Insurance Scheme in an Urban Context: Opportunities and Challenges for Australian Cities

“…This has at least three implications for an urban agenda. First, there is the question of universal access to creative and playful public space, not only parks and playgrounds, but streets and squares (Dee, 2015). Second, there is a question of participatory local governance and the inclusion of people with disability, not only in co-evaluation of specific programs, or as members of advisory boards but also more general inclusion in a new era of citizens juries and e-democracy (Frawley and Bigby, 2011;Robinson et al, 2014;Aulich and Artist, 2015).…”