Youth Emerge as the Newest Community Partners

Ramona Mullahey
American Planning Association

A free society needs constantly to consider and discuss its present reality in the light of its past traditions and where it wants to go.
- Robert N. Bellah et al., Habits of the Heart

Forward–thinking cities such as Hampton, Las Vegas, and Louisville are examples of municipalities who are helping to define that future by making a “seat at the table” for youth by engaging them in local decision-making processes. Hampton, Virginia has two part-time Youth Planners on staff in the city’s planning department who are responsible for the youth component in the city’s comprehensive plan. Las Vegas, Nevada has a Youth Neighborhood Association Partnership Program that provides mini-grants and skills training in neighborhood improvement. Louisville, Kentucky has a system of Neighborhood Youth Boards and a Youth Cabinet shaping the city’s public policy agenda. These communities are creating a common culture of youth participation bolstered by advocates, like the National League of Cities, committed to broadening the base of community leadership and policy-making to include young people.

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) HOPE VI office continues to take the bold path of providing tools for at risk youth living in severely distressed public housing to voice their ideas and concerns on the redevelopment of their communities and to learn creative problem solving. HUD offers a platform for youth to acquire the skills of leadership so they can effectively participate in improving their homes, their quality of life, and their opportunities for a future.

This past January, the Local Government Commission, a Sacramento-based non-profit, with supporters like the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, for the second year, selected youth delegates from across the country as the newest Partners in the New Partners for Smart Growth conference discussion. Besides learning smart growth principles and the community planning process, youth leaders share their unique perspectives, experience, enthusiasm, and commitment to make a difference in the world. As they take their place at the “planning table”, they develop action plans for integrating their new knowledge back home in their neighborhoods.

As more cities, towns, and neighborhoods take strategic actions to launch programs for youth engagement, we will see more youth appointed to youth councils, municipal boards and commissions, or hired as staff interns in city departments, or collaborate on youth mapping projects, or commit to youth community service projects.

As youth delegates shared at the close of last year’s Smart Growth conference, “We are not saying hold our hand, what we are saying is open the door for us and give us the tools, and we will wildly exceed your expectations.”

And succeed they have. Following the Hope VI Youth Leadership for Change Summit, held at the University of California at Berkeley in August 2002, these young leaders returned home armed with new knowledge and ready to put their social enterprise plans into action. Dozens of youth–driven projects have been developed. In Seattle, youth residents of the Park Lake Homes community operate a Bubble Bliss tea cart to earn money, gain valuable work experience, and, to reinvest in themselves and their business. Oakland youth helped to redesign a mini-park across of public housing development, and are currently creating a video to present the project to potential funders.

Over the past few years, cultivating youth as the newest community partners has gained startling momentum. We are definitely developing the infrastructure for successful collaboration between youth and their adult allies in many venues. Lives are being transformed as the civic capacity for both youth and adults are being expanded, and expectations surpass anyone’s imagination.

Ramona K. Mullahey is a professional planner committed to the development of healthy communities and civic empowerment. She has been the American Planning Association's (APA) national advocate for involving young people in planning since 1989. She edits the APA's online magazine, Resources Zine, (www.planning.org) a compendium of programs, best practices, and tools that nurture youth leadership in shaping the places they live.