Youth Participatory Action Research for Equitable Urban Design

Abstract

The Nashville Youth Design Team (NYDT) is a youth participatory action research and design collective based in Metro Nashville-Davidson County, Tennessee, USA. Developing out of a longstanding collaborative partnership between the Civic Design Center, a Nashville-based nonprofit that supports community engagement in urban design and planning, and researchers from Vanderbilt University, the NYDT seeks to improve youth health and well-being through research, design, and advocacy. In this paper we briefly describe the origins and goals of the NYDT before applying the NYDT’s action research process to the team’s most recent project, the Dream City Workshop, to illustrate how the team’s work aims to center youth voices in decision-making spaces and challenge structural inequities within the built environment. The Dream City Workshop is a two hour design thinking workshop, where youth participants are encouraged to create a city specifically designed to meet the needs of young people; a city where the only limit is their imagination. The goal of this workshop is to help young people think creatively to resist hegemonic norms and challenge structural inequities like structural racism and classism to imagine a better and more inclusive city for all. Following a detailed description of the development and implementation of the Dream City Workshop, we consider the strengths and weaknesses of the NYDT’s action research process and the workshop, specifically exploring how the team, through their work, seeks to address structural racism and work towards health equity. We conclude the paper by providing recommendations for others interested in cultivating similar locally focused action research projects and collectives.