Making space for youth in our communities

This article is the second in a five-part series exploring the connections between placemaking and community wellbeing, written by Happy Cities and the Canada Healthy Communities Initiative’s (CHCI) Placemaking Community. Building on the Power of Placemaking project and our Community Conversations, this article shares learnings on why placemaking with youth matters, and how city staff, community organizations, and placemakers can support better places for young people.

This is what we heard through conversations with practitioners shaping spaces across Canada.

A group of youth pose together in front of a Nunavut flag at a wrestling competition, held in a community arena. — Youth from Cambridge Bay participate in a wrestling tournament together. (Cambridge Bay Wrestling Club)

What places did you love spending time in as a kid or teenager?

We recently asked this to participants from across the country at our Community Conversation on creating spaces for youth through placemaking. Some people shared memories of spending time outdoors, at the mall, or at school. But most didn’t have a place to go independently to do activities and meet friends.

“I grew up in interior B.C. in a small town and there really wasn’t a youth community space unless you were a skateboarder or, you know, if you were a smoker at school,” said one participant. “Looking back, I wish that there had been more of a spot for youth to hang out in the community that was catered to artists or the people that didn't really feel like they belonged anywhere.”

Their answers reflect a broader problem: Many communities lack welcoming and safe ‘third places’ for youth, meaning, places that are not home or school or work. Placemaking offers one solution to creating these third places for youth, by involving people in shaping their own community spaces and activities.

Why safe spaces for youth matter

Our early years are crucial for developing positive social relationships, trust, and health. Shared community spaces play a key role in providing opportunities for youth to connect and stay active. For example, streets that are closed to cars and open for socializing, playing, and walking to school are linked with greater physical and mental health.

In urban centres, kids and teens may have access to more community spaces and activities. But young people in small towns—or places that require a car to get around—often struggle to get to spaces designed specifically for them.

The Cambridge Bay Wrestling Club organizes programs and activities for youth in the remote Inuit community of just 1,900 people, north of the Arctic Circle. Chris Crooks, President and Coach at the Wrestling Club, explained that safe spaces for youth are about building strong relationships and making the most of the spaces available to them—such as by hosting teen dances in the gym or bringing youth to outdoor training camps.

“We create safe spaces basically anywhere we are,” said Crooks. “We actively seek out positive role models who can support and engage the youth in a healthy manner. Those involved with the youth are counselled, trained, and continually mentored to try and achieve the best possible outcome.”

Safe community spaces are especially important for kids who may not have a stable home environment. After a traumatic loss in the community, the Club invited youth to attend a training camp and workshops outside the community. The goal is to provide safe spaces inside and outside the community where youth can express themselves without judgement, connect, heal, grow, and have fun. The Club offers experiential learning activities, from horseback riding, to swimming, rock climbing, visiting museums, learning about Inuit culture, and financial planning.

A young girl grins widely and flies a Nunavut flag over her head, wearing her wrestling outfit. Her coach cheers in the background.

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Youth gain new skills, activities, and friendships through the Cambridge Bay Wrestling Club in Nunavut.(Cambridge Bay Wrestling Club)

Bigger cities face different challenges as they grow and add more housing, which increases demand for third spaces.

Meaghan Popadynetz and Zainab Abbasi, cultural planners with the City of Mississauga, shared how the municipality is creating space for young people as the city rapidly develops—while working to build connections and engagement in city planning processes.

“When I was growing up, the Square One mall, which is our central mall, was the one place that youth really gathered,” said Popadynetz. “It’s our central transit hub. So that's where we see a lot of youth hanging out, but it wasn’t necessarily welcoming. It's very retail-focused.”

The City recognized that it needed to offer a more welcoming space with free activities and furniture to hang out on. So it built Celebration Square beside City Hall and the mall, with an amphitheatre to host live music and festivals, skate park, picnic tables, a splash pad that turns into a skating rink in the winter, and more.

“[Before], people would go and work at City Hall, pay their tax bill, that sort of thing,” said Popadynetz. “That was a very adult space. Now, we’ve made it more intergenerational with spaces available for youth to see that City Hall is not just a place where there’s business being done, but where we also provide support and space for residents—and the youth are our residents.”

Engaging youth in shaping community spaces

How do we go about creating community spaces for—and with—youth? Participants from across Canada shared their experiences.

Lanrick Bennett Jr. is the Executive Director at Charlie’s Freewheels, a community-led organization that inspires youth to ride bikes with confidence and excitement, by providing skills, tools, and guidance. He explains that the first step is to take youth voices seriously, and then consider what their unique needs are.

“We’ve gotta take the time to listen,” said Bennett. “When we’re talking and how we look at places catering to young people, we’re looking at, ‘Is this place easy to get to without a parent or an adult? Is the place safe and accessible? Is the place free or do I have to pay a fee?’”

It’s also essential to think seriously about how we meet youth. For example, most kids are not interested in going to a town hall to weigh in on a city planning process. Instead, city planners might go to a local school to meet youth where they are and invite them to directly shape their neighbourhoods—through projects such as community murals or a photography workshop. If we fail to reach and listen to youth, spaces end up being shaped by the dominant voices in the room—typically, people who are older, whiter, and more affluent. For example, in many Toronto neighbourhoods, the City used to take down basketball nets in local parks after school because people complained that kids were making too much noise.

“It's a detriment to not include young people, because what you’re teaching them right there and then is that their voice doesn’t matter and their input doesn’t matter, and only these other people that are older or of a different colour or different race or whatnot that don’t look like you [matter],” said Bennett. “We need to break that cycle.”

Charlie’s Freewheels teaches youth about bike riding and maintenance, offering practical skills, fun, and social connections. (Lanrick Bennett Jr / Charlie’s Freewheels)

Creating spaces for different experiences, activities, and ages

Another key consideration is what age group and demographics your initiative aims to attract. The term “youth” encompasses many ages and life experiences. Participants emphasized that for teenagers and young kids, interests vary significantly—what’s interesting to a 12 year-old is different than an 18 year-old, and older teens can be intimidating to younger ones.

These wide-ranging needs can be challenging to accommodate in smaller communities, where there might not be enough participants to fill a program for a specific age group, or it takes more staff and resources than are available.

For Launch Pad, a skills training centre in Hanover, Ontario, the solution has been to engage community members and local businesses in supporting youth-focused activities.

“Something we’ve found is any way we can make programs no cost or very low cost is always going to boost our numbers,” said Rebecca Broderick, Executive Director. “We have a commercial kitchen, a wood shop, a welding shop where the cost of supplies are going up. It's been a challenge. But it’s also been a good one because we could see the community stepping up and saying, ‘Hey, we'll donate the supplies,’ or ‘We have someone who will come be an instructor.’”

Engaging youth for stronger communities

Above all, youth-focused spaces and activities help people find what they are passionate and excited about—whether climate activism, biking, city planning, or otherwise.

The power of placemaking for—and with—youth goes beyond a program or physical space. The organizations we spoke with all work to equip kids with the skills, community connections, and confidence to go out and take up space in public, make their neighbourhood their own, and feel like their voices matter in shaping their community.

“The essence of what Charlie’s Freewheels does will continue to thrive wherever we go and whatever we’re doing, because we’re building this network of youth that are riding along with this sense of place literally beneath their feet,” said Bennett. “On top of the mechanical know-how, we’re also giving them an understanding of what this personal vehicle [their bike] can take them to—whether that’s taking them to school to work, to a friend's house, to a concert, to the library. It’s very much just [about] allowing this bubble to expand for them.”

Discover youth-led initiatives across Canada

We’re sharing a few youth-led organizations, spaces, and programs that inspire us. Are we missing something? Email healthycommunities@canurb.org to share your youth-led initiative.