What is 'Co-Creating Our City'?

Introduction

'Co-Creating Our City' denotes a participatory project that brings together local young people and decision-makers to shape opportunities for youth engagement in cities and municipalities.

Young people and city officials engage in workshops and work as a team of co-researchers to explore the needs, challenges, and opportunities for youth participation in their communities. 'Co-Creating Our City' projects can focus on a specific topic that a community wants solutions for (e.g., housing, transport, or sustainability) or on creating better structures and opportunities for youth engagement across many issues and areas of governance. Based on findings from their research, young people and local decision-makers jointly develop concrete recommendations, ensuring that young people have a meaningful voice in shaping decisions about their local environment and community.

'Co-Creating Our City' projects allow cities to gain deeper insight into youth needs and experiences, increasing their capacity to design inclusive policies and making participatory democracy more legitimate and sustainable. By fostering collaboration between young people and city officials, 'Co-Creating Our City' projects:

• create a dialogue between young people and local decision-makers,
• capture and include in solutions the perspectives of those most affected, and
• establish and increase trust between young residents and city institutions.

'Co-Creating Our City' is a concrete research project on the opportunities for young people to engage in local political decisions. It is about capturing the voices of those who are really affected. These are young people who could participate politically but perhaps don't know how or perhaps don't know yet that their interests could be implemented politically. But it is also a project for administrative staff as well as local politicians, who have an interest in getting in touch with young people.

Dr. Anna Soßdorf

project lead, SCI:MOVE

'Co-Creating Our City' is about bringing together young people and city staff and local administrators to create ideas for how young people can be engaged in their communities and their cities.

Dr. Christine Hübner

project lead, d|part

Project documentary

Take a look at this video documenting the project in the two ‘Co-Creating Our City’ pilot cities – Charlotte, NC, and one in Düsseldorf, Germany