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Teenagers and Public Space Literature Review: OPENspace Research Centre, Edinburgh College of Art/Heriot Watt University 1 Teenagers and Public Space Literature Review Penny Travlou OPENspace: the research centre for inclusive access to outdoor environments Edinburgh College of Art and Heriot-Watt University 79 Grassmarket Edinburgh EH1 2HJ Tel: 0131 221 6177 Fax: 0131 221 6157 [email protected] July 2003 Teenagers and Public Space Literature Review: OPENspace Research Centre, Edinburgh College of Art/Heriot Watt University 2 Teenagers and Public Space Literature Review by Dr. Penny Travlou, OPENspace Research Centre Index 1.1 Introduction 1.2 Young People’s Perceptions of their Local Environment 1.2.1 Growing Up in Cities (GUIC) Project 1.2.3 Other Cross-continental studies 1.2.4 Young People’s Perception of their Local Environment in UK 1.2.5 Young People’s Experiences of Rural Environments 1.3 Crime and Teenagers 1.3.1 Vandalism 1.3.2 Teenage Curfews 1.3.3 Skateboarding and Exclusion from Public Space 1.4 Suggestions for Further Research 1.5 References 1.1 Introduction Over the last twenty years there has been a developing research interest in young people and their relationship with the urban environment. Various researchers from different countries and academic backgrounds as Kevin Lynch (1977), Colin Ward (1977) and Roger Hart (1979) were pioneering in their approach of observing the experiences of young people in the city. First, Lynch (1977) in his research Growing Up in Cities studied small groups of young people in diverse cities (Melbourne, Warsaw, Salta and Mexico City), in an attempt to discover how they used and valued their environment, and identified the importance of urban space as a vital resource in development from adolescence to adulthood. Then, Hart’s (1979) major study Children’s Experience of Place aimed to discover the landscape as it exists for children. His arguments were based on the findings of a case study he carried out in a small town in New England, US. The core conclusion of his research was that within each child lies a primary urge and desire to explore and come to know the larger environment. Meanwhile, at the same time as the above studies, the British anarchist and education reformist, Colin Ward (1977) carried out research in the Teenagers and Public Space Literature Review: OPENspace Research Centre, Edinburgh College of Art/Heriot Watt University 5 In addition, one of the goals of the revival of the ‘GUIC’ was to afford comparisons between children’s experience in the past and present at two sites from the seventies that were revisited in the nineties: an old working-class district in Warsaw and an industrialised suburb in Melbourne. For instance, in the case of Sunshine in Melbourne, the results of the present study supplemented the findings of the initial study, showing that young people, then and now, value places in similar terms (Owens 1994). Many places that the original study recorded are still frequented by teenagers and their activities there are not much different than they were twenty years ago. However, other places identified in the recent study, such as streets, stoops and waste places, were not included in the previous studies. According to Louise Chawla (2001), the director of the reinitiated GUIC project, even if twenty-five years have passed from the original project and eight nations have been involved, similar constants emerged in terms of the criteria by which children judged their environments as satisfying their needs or failing them. All of the features that determined good environments in which to grow up in the seventies re-emerged in the nineties: • a feeling of social integration and acceptance; • varied, interesting activity settings; • peer gathering places; • a general sense of safety and freedom of movement; • a cohesive community identity; and • where available, green areas for informal play and exploration as well as organised sports. There were also constants in the features that children associated with alienation and dissatisfaction: • social exclusion and stigma; • boredom; • fear of crime or harassment; • heavy traffic; and • uncollected rubbish and litter. While geographic isolation was a major concern for children in the seventies, racial and ethnic tensions as well as complaints about crime and environmental pollution were expressed more frequently in the nineties. Teenagers and Public Space Literature Review: OPENspace Research Centre, Edinburgh College of Art/Heriot Watt University 6 The revival of the project also indicated that beyond the provision of basic needs, what the children wanted most was a sense of security, acceptance and positive identity, in places where they could socialise, play with friends and find interesting activities to join or observe. Finally, the findings of GUIC project showed that communities have to take seriously children’s and youth’s views on environmental decision-making and invest in the following ingredients of effective participation: • invest in people who can facilitate participation; • invest in training and certification; • recognise action research as a significant contribution to agency planning and academic prestige; • institutionalise children’s inclusion; • use qualitative as well as quantitative indicators of well-being; • create community-based school and after-school curricula. Young People's Perceptions 1.2.3 Other Cross-continental studies Inspired by GUIC project’s cross-continental character, other studies carried out comparative research in more than one country. One such project was conducted in New Zealand, comparing children’s independent access to their local environment in comparison with other cities in Australia, Germany and Britain (Tranter and Pawson 2001). The authors employed a variety of research methods – both quantitative and qualitative – to chart the variability of children’s freedoms and restrictions of their movement in their local neighbourhood and school. Their international comparisons revealed the determining role of cultures of outdoor activity and individual versus collective responsibility in shaping parental behaviours and children’s freedom of movement. In particular, comparisons between New Zealand and Australia, Germany and UK showed striking contrasts in the level of children’s freedom, with German children enjoying the highest levels of freedom overall. These international differences are attributed to aspects of the compared cities, the state of public transport, a shared sense of adult responsibility for children’s supervision in Germany as opposed to the ethos of individualism in the other three countries, and the greater use of outdoor space by German people of all ages. Teenagers and Public Space Literature Review: OPENspace Research Centre, Edinburgh College of Art/Heriot Watt University 7 In brief, longitudinal and cross-continental studies offer the opportunity to chart the dynamically evolving temporal and spatial parameters of the adolescent experience. Young People's Perceptions 1.2.4 Young People’s Perception of their Local Environment in UK In Britain, interest in adolescence studies is more recent than for instance in Australia and New Zealand. Few studies have explicitly examined the place use and behaviour of young teenagers in Britain. Instead, attention has focused on children from 5 to 11 years old. Hugh Matthews (1995) stresses that older children are invisible in the urban landscape, an argument that offers a more radical insight into the problematic position of teenagers in modern society. By failing to take into account young people’s ‘way of seeing’, they become a significant outsider group. He suggests that there is a need to investigate the environment as young people understand it, as only in this way can they become fully integrated users of large-scale places. In this respect, it can be argued that older children, particularly those between 14 to 18 years old, are not only virtually absent from environmental planning and excluded from public space – as discussed above – but have also been ignored, until recently, from research. However in the mid-nineties, the absence of such research on young people was widely noticed. Academics from different disciplines - environmental and developmental psychology, geography, criminology, anthropology, sociology and even landscape architecture and housing – have realised the importance of studying young people’s experiences and perceptions of their local environment. In 1996, the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) announced a new research programme “Children 5 – 16: Growing into the 21st Century” consisting of twenty-two different projects with a common theme: looking at children as social actors (see www.hull.ac.uk/children5to16programme/intro.htm). Among those projects, there were some that focused, in particular, on young people’s use and perception of their local environment. For instance, the Centre for Children and Youth at Nene College of Higher Education carried out a large-scale study in Northamptonshire on investigating the environment as young people (9 to 16 years old) ‘see it’ and how they make use of place (Matthews, Limb and Taylor 1999; www.hull.ac.uk/children5to16programme/intro.htm). The main argument of the study was that young people are seemingly invisible within the ‘fourth environment’, those public spaces beyond home, school and playground, provided only with ‘token spaces’, often inappropriate to their needs and aspirations (Matthews 1995; Matthews, Limb and Percy-Smith 1998; Teenagers and Public Space Literature Review: OPENspace Research Centre, Edinburgh College of Art/Heriot Watt University 10 1.2.5 Young People’s Experiences of Rural Environments Most of the literature on young people’s perception of their local environment focuses on those living in urban areas. Many social scientists claim that there is a significant absence in the research literature concerning children and young people in rural areas, although this is changing (Philo 1992; Valentine 1997; Matthews et al. 2000). One possible reason for the omission of rural children and teenagers from research may be the stereotypical notion of the countryside as an idyllic place for them to live and grow up. For instance, Valentine (1997: 137) writes that: “Perhaps the most powerful imagining is of the rural as a peaceful, tranquil, close knit community […] based on a nostalgia for a past way of life which is ‘remembered’ as purer, simpler and closer to nature.” These nostalgic impulses are mostly felt by parents rather than children themselves, whose perceptions about the ‘rural idyll’ depend on its separation from any urban influences (Ward 1990; Valentine 1997; Nairn, Panelli and McCormack 2003). In this sense, “[…] urban childhoods are often prejudged against underlying notions of country childhood idyll, and the contemporary lives of rural children themselves are lived within the shadows of the figures of children that play throughout the sunlit landscapes of popular and literary imaginations” (Jones 1997: 159). However, recent studies have proved the opposite, arguing that rural places, particularly in the developed countries, have changed dramatically in the last twenty years and their differences with urban areas have been constantly decreasing (Valentine 1997; Matthews et al. 2000). According to Matthews et al. (2000). Young people in rural areas are as much excluded from public space as in urban areas, especially the least affluent teenagers. This argument is also shared by Colin Ward (1990) who stresses that children in rural areas are increasingly being denied access to open spaces (e.g. woods, forests, fields). In other words, the cultural construction of the ‘rural idyll’ varies with age and is most accessible to and enjoyable for those with economic wealth. More than that, Matthews et al. (2000) show how young people try to create ‘urban’ spaces in rural areas to perform sociability modelled on urban forms as portrayed in the media and popular discourse (see Nairn, Panelli and McCormack 2003). Under the same light, Gill Valentine (1997) suggests that, in contrast to common myths, rural places are not necessarily Teenagers and Public Space Literature Review: OPENspace Research Centre, Edinburgh College of Art/Heriot Watt University 11 settings in which children and teenagers can grow up in innocence, free from conflict. She shows how the rural can be understood as simultaneously both safe and dangerous. Surprisingly, there are very few comparative studies on urban versus rural experiences of young people, particularly here in Britain. Most of the projects are either carried out in the one setting or the other as those discussed earlier in this section. In New Zealand, however, a group of researchers from the University of Otago carried out a study comparing a rural and an urban environment (Nairn, McCormack and Liepins 2000). The main goal of the study was to bring the ‘rural’ and ‘urban’ together by examining the differences and similarities of young people’s experiences in both contexts and thus, avoid some reproduction of the urban/rural dualism. The study sought to demonstrate how young people construct a variety of meanings and understandings about sociospatial processes of the environments in which they live. Specifically, the researchers examined how young people described the sites and spaces where they ‘hang out’ and their experiences of inclusion and exclusion at these places. According to the project’s findings, young people in rural areas, like their urban counterparts, experience both exclusion and inclusion in a range of sites and spaces and identify urban as well as ‘natural’ features as important elements of their respective locations (Nairn, Panelli and McCormack 2003). The research showed that young people associate inclusion with a range of spaces that provide a sense of ease and recognition. Alongside with feelings of inclusion, many young people experienced exclusion within their communities. While relatively few felt totally excluded many recalled instances when they felt excluded. These findings show that young people’s responses could not be neatly defined in a simple binary of inclusion or exclusion. Young respondents appeared to experience both instances of inclusion and exclusion within their local environment. Finally, the research also demonstrated that there is a rural/urban divide in young people’s experiences of their local environment which reinforces any myth about this divide. Along with urban/rural divide, there is also a gender divide identified by studies of rural girls’ perceptions of space (Tucker and Matthews 2001). Rural girls experience exclusion and marginalisation on the basis of their gender, in addition with any exclusion stemming from their (young) age. In particular, Tucker and Matthews (2001) study in rural Northamptonshire showed that girls are restricted from using many of the outdoor spaces not only due to their age but also due to their gender. The research findings revealed that Teenagers and Public Space Literature Review: OPENspace Research Centre, Edinburgh College of Art/Heriot Watt University 12 where girls occupied public spaces, they were seen by adults as being the ‘wrong’ gender in the ‘wrong’ place as well as being exposed to risks in such unsafe places. A number of girls reported feeling unwelcome in the very places set aside by adults for their use – recreational grounds, parks and woods. Vigilant adults viewed young girls’ presence in these recreational spaces, particularly after dark, as unacceptable since only young people who cause trouble go there at that time (Ward Thompson et al, 2002). In general, the ways in which the rural landscape is gendered excludes girls from particular opportunities (i.e. recreation). As a result, girls are often marginalised, compelled to stay outside the boundaries of ‘boys places’. Young People's Perceptions 1.3 Crime and Teenagers 1.3.1 Vandalism According to Lieberg "teenagers have no obvious right to spaces of their own. They often have nowhere to go except public spaces, where they often come into conflict with other groups" (1995: 720). It is commonly known that many teenagers often want to be independent of their parents. Since they have no real private space of their own, they often use public or quasi-public spaces. Jacobs (1965) states that: “Both active and passive participation in the daily life of urban streets promotes a gentle transition into the adult world […] teenagers have always been criticised for this type of loitering but they can hardly grow up without it” (in Lieberg 1995: 730). The problem teenagers face with regard to public spaces is that these spaces: “…Are designed underscore that they are not meant primarily for spontaneous social meetings, they are instead meant for certain specific activities such as transportation” (Leiberg 1995: 720). Teenagers, thus, are often seen as loitering rather than simply meeting with friends. They are often not welcomed by others who feel that they are going to cause some sort of problem. Parents, in particular, seem to be anxious that older children many become the perpetrators of violence and vandalism or become embroiled in delinquent acts (i.e. drug taking, underage sex) (Valentine and McKendrick 1997). These hostile attitude towards young people’s presence in certain areas is more apparent in central business districts (CBD) which have been transformed from public spaces into private. The CBD areas, due Teenagers and Public Space Literature Review: OPENspace Research Centre, Edinburgh College of Art/Heriot Watt University 15 excluded or marginalised, as a result, from these places. In a research project commissioned by the Countryside Recreation Network (Joseph et al. 2001), it was found that there is persuasive evidence of socially structured exclusion of certain groups. Undoubtedly, young people belong to such an underrepresented group in outdoor activities while central and local government have insufficient resources with which to deal with adolescents’ exclusion from these places. Crime and Teenagers 1.3.2 Teenage Curfews One question arising from the literature review is whether young people are “devils or angels?” Whatever the answer may be, teenagers seem to be treated with caution for being either the perpetrators or the victims of crime in public space. This is reflected in government policies, particularly in Anglo-American countries, which use various surveillance and policing methods to control young people’s behaviour and activities in public space in order to tackle - as they argue – crime and juvenile delinquency. The implementation of juvenile curfews is one such government policy to control crime in public space by imposing strict spatial and temporal restrictions on young people in an era when many adults view them as a menace to be contained. According to Collins and Kearns (2001: 401): “Curfews are legal mechanisms which produce public space as adult space by banishing young people from the public realm at certain times. […] Indeed, curfews not only (re)assert adult spatial hegemony but also (re)inforce the social boundaries between adults and young people, keeping the latter “in their place” by reserving certain basic rights (e.g. freedom of movement, association and peaceful assembly) for adults.” In fact, the proliferation of curfews in recent times is closely connected to the pervasive moral panic centred upon young people. For sociologists, the concept ‘moral panic’ is “an instrument of social control used to demonise particular groups”, in this case, young people (Collins and Kearns 2001: 390). In Britain, the association of moral panic with young people became stronger after the murder of a three year-old boy, Jamie Bulger, by two ten year-olds in 1993. The media, in particular, reinforced the image of older children as ‘devils’ and encouraged the British Conservative Government to initiate juvenile curfews as a weapon to ‘crack down’ juvenile delinquency. Teenagers and Public Space Literature Review: OPENspace Research Centre, Edinburgh College of Art/Heriot Watt University 16 However, studies on whether curfews as a strategy to control crime are successful conclude that this is quite debatable. According to a major study (Males and Macallair 1998) of the effects of curfews on youth crime in 21 cities of 100,000 or more people in Los Angeles and Orange Counties: • Curfews cannot be shown to reduce youth crime or violent death over time or by locale as cities without curfews showed the same patterns as cities that enforced curfews; • Curfews may actually increase crime and reduce youth safety by occupying police time removing law-abiding youths from public space, leaving emptier streets and public places which urban planning experts argue are conductive to crime; • In Monrovia, California, after the introduction of curfews in 1994, the crime rate did not decline. More surprising, it declined only during the summer months and school-year nights and weekends when the curfew was not enforced; • In Vermon, Connecticut, police reported no instances of criminal activity among the youth they cited for curfew. Thus, the effect was to remove law-abiding youths from the streets. According to this research, young people are not ‘out of control’ as the media and authorities wrongly portrayed them. Instead, it is adults, particularly those over 30, who display ‘skyrocketing rates’ of serious crime, drug and alcohol abuse. In Britain, Matthews, Limb and Taylor’s (1999) large-scale study, carried out as part of the “Children 5-16: growing into 21st century”, came across similar findings to the research in California about the validity of juvenile curfews in the country. The study revealed that a curfew does not offer a way forward as it reinforces a sense of powerlessness and alienation for young people. In reality, it only portrays how contemporary society perceives children and young people: “From being innocent and vulnerable 'angels', victims of circumstance, in need of care and protection, children in trouble have been systematically reconstructed and (re)presented in the late 1990's as 'demons', the knowing perpetrators of malevolent and evil acts” (Matthews, Limb and Taylor: 1713). The same research showed that young people themselves feel quite vulnerable in public space, which makes the discourse on and effectiveness of juvenile curfews even more ambivalent and questionable. According to the research findings, half of the total sample perceived streets to be fearful places when they are out alone and one fourth of them felt Teenagers and Public Space Literature Review: OPENspace Research Centre, Edinburgh College of Art/Heriot Watt University 17 the same when they are out with friends. By far the most articulated dangers after traffic were bullies and gangs, fear of attack and fear of strangers (Matthews, Limb and Taylor 1999). The results suggest that young people' s place fears are largely the products of how adults use places. The findings also revealed that being with friends when outside the home is very important to young people. Yet, it is when young people congregate together that they are often seen as discrepant and their behaviour as threatening. The survey showed that in most cases all they are doing is making themselves feel safer by being together. Another large-scale study on older children’s perceptions of their local urban centres in Britain, and in particular, on their concerns and fears when using these centres, showed that one third of them found their own town centre as dangerous and one fifth as violent (Woolley et al. 1999). Likewise, in the larger towns, teenagers described the presence of threatening or dangerous groups of people – drunks and drug users – as ‘dangers’. Many of the young participants also mentioned that they worried about being abducted or raped. In general, discourse on curfew portrays young people on the street as either a potential threat to the moral fabric of society or as a group in need of protection from menaces beyond their control. There is no better way to describe the above argument than Goldson' s proclamation that “he miners of the mid-1980s have been replaced by the minors of the mid-1990s” (Goldson 1997: 134). Rejecting the validity of the curfew orders, the above studies suggest that the streets could play a positive role in the lives of young people, affording them settings in which they can escape from being with adults (away from the adult gaze), socialise with people of their own age, and develop their own sense of identity. Crime and Teenagers 1.3.3 Skateboarding and Exclusion from Public Space One teenage group who faces major exclusion from using public space, and quite often penalisation, is skateboarders. Interestingly, this group of ‘active’ teenagers have caused such a major impact with their presence in public space (i.e. parks, streets, public steps) that the public has been divided into those who support skateboarding (and the creation of skateparks) and those who dislike them. Along with the public, local authorities, planners and policy-makers worldwide have taken a stand either in support of or against Teenagers and Public Space Literature Review: OPENspace Research Centre, Edinburgh College of Art/Heriot Watt University 20 Through research into six skateparks in Oregon, Jones and Graves (2000) came to the conclusion that these teen places are often misunderstood and misused by those in power and designers as a way to control young people’s spatial mobility. Skateparks were seen as a way to fence the activity, constructing boundaries to a sport and young trend in a manner that most likely results in a facility-based mentality that supports the sport without supporting the needs of the users as people. “In short, the skatepark became a compromise to get the skaters off the streets, and gave the skaters a place to skate where they ‘wouldn’t be hassled’” (Jones and Graves 2000: 146). However, ‘getting skaters off the streets’ by creating skateparks is not a simple solution. Planners and decision-makers forget that young people have additional needs than just engaging with their favourite sport: they also need places where they can feel independent and free from any control (Borden 1998a). As, most of the times, young people are not consulted about the facilities provided for them, these places do not fit their real needs. It is not rare to see skaters going back to the streets to perform their sport and reclaim their independence (L’ Aoustet and Griffet 2001; Woolley and Johns 2001). Older and more experienced skateboarders, especially, feel that skateparks, resembling playgrounds, are not designed for them. “To escape the crowd of novices, the experienced participants adopt two strategies: they either meet up at late hours (with the implications that can generate: delinquency, non-attendance at school), or they abandon the place and invade other public spaces, squares, parks or streets” (L’ Aoustet and Griffet 2001: 415). Crime and Teenagers Index 1.4 Suggestions for Further Research Two gaps in our empirical knowledge of adolescent experience of public space are identified in this survey. First, longitudinal and cross-continental studies, capable of providing us with a better understanding of temporal and spatial parameters of the adolescent experience, are very few. Relevant to this point, the utilisation of foreign language publications (e.g. the large French literature on the subject) by English-speaking researchers has been minimal. Second, the older teenager group (15-18 years old) is particularly underrepresented in the literature, even though this is the crucial age of Teenagers and Public Space Literature Review: OPENspace Research Centre, Edinburgh College of Art/Heriot Watt University 21 ‘teenage experience’ for many young people. Most studies of this group follow a criminological approach, dealing mainly with issues of teenage delinquency, possibly reflecting negative social images of adolescents as the deviants par excellence. Finally, academic research should be available to local authorities, planners and policy-makers for consultation in their future youth strategies. In order to formulate friendlier policies and more beneficial initiatives for young people, decision-makers have to get a more in-depth view on daily experiences and life expectations and aspirations of teenagers. Index 1.5 References ABC Radio National of Australia (19 February 1999) The Sports Factor: The Politics of Skateboarding. http://arts.abc.net.au Adler, C., O’Connor, I., Warner, K. and White, R. (1992) Perceptions of the Treatment of Juveniles in the Legal System. Canberra: National Youth Affairs Research Scheme. L’ Aoustet, O. And Griffet, J. (2001) ‘’The experience of teenagers at Marseilles’ Skate Park: emergence and evaluation of an urban sports site’’, in Cities 18(6): 413-418. Borden, I. (May 1998a) “An affirmation of urban life: skateboarding and socio-spatial censorship in the late twentieth century city”, in ARCHIS – Architecture, City, Visual Culture. www.archis.org Borden, I. (1998b) “Body architecture: skateboarding and the creation of super- architectural space”, in J. Hill (ed.) Occupying Architecture: Between the Architecture and the User. London: Routledge. Borden, I. (2001) Skateboarding, Space and the City: Architecture, the Body and Performative Critique. Oxford: Berg Publishers. Burgess, J. (1995) Growing in Confidence: Understanding People’s Perceptions of Urban Fringe Woodlands. Northampton: Countryside Commission. Teenagers and Public Space Literature Review: OPENspace Research Centre, Edinburgh College of Art/Heriot Watt University 22 Burgess, J. (1998) “But is it worth taking the risk? How women negotiate access to urban woodland: a case study”, in R. Ainley (ed.) New Frontiers of Space, Bodies and Gender. London: Routledge, pp. 115-128. Cahill, S. (1990) “Childhood and public life: Reaffirming biographical divisions”, in Social Problems 37: 390-402. Chawla, L. (2001) “putting young old ideas into action: the relevance of growing up in cities to local Agenda 21”, in Local Environment 6(1): 13-25. Chawla, L. (2002) Growing in Up in an Urbanised World. London: UNESCO. Collins, D.C.A. and Kearns, R.A. (2001) “Under curfew and under siege? Legal geographies of young people”, in Geoforum 32: 389-403. Geason, S. and Wilson, P. (1989) Designing Out Crime: Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design. Canberra: Australian Institute of Criminology. Goldson, B. (1997) Children in trouble: state responses to juvenile crime, in P. Straton (ed.) Childhood in Crisis. London: UCL Press, pp. 124-145. Greenfield, J, Jones, D., O’Brien, M., Rustin, M., and Sloan, D. (July 2000) “Childhood, urban space and citizenship: child sensitive urban regeneration” , project funded by the ESRC Research Programme on Children 5 – 16: Growing into the 21st Century. www.hull.ac.uk/children5to16programme/details/obrien.htm Hart, R. (1979) Children’s Experience of Place. London: Irvington Press. Iso-Ahola, S.E. and Crowley, E.D. (1991) “Adolescent substance abuse and leisure boredom”, in Journal of Leisure Research 23(3): 260-271. James, A. (1986) “Learning to belong: the boundaries of adolescence”, in A. Cohen (ed.) Symbolising Boundaries. Manchester: Manchester University Press. Teenagers and Public Space Literature Review: OPENspace Research Centre, Edinburgh College of Art/Heriot Watt University 25 Tranter, P. and Pawson, E. (2001) “Children’s access to local environments: a case- study of Christchurch, New Zealand”, in Local Environment 6(1): 27-48. Tucker, F. and Matthews, H. (2001) “They don’t like girls hanging around there: conflicts over recreational space in rural Northamptonshire”, in Area 33(2): 161-168. Urban Action (2001) The Poetics of Security: Skateboarding, Urban Design, and the New Public Space. www.urbanstructure.com/urbanaction/ps2.html Valentine, G. (1996) “Angels and devils: moral landscapes of childhood”, in Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 14: 581-599. Valentine, G. (1997) “A safe place to grow up? Parenting, perceptions of children’s safety and the rural idyll”, in Journal of Rural Studies 13: 137-148. Valentine, G. and McKendrick, J. (1997) “Children’s outdoor play: exploring parental concerns about children’s safety and the changing nature of childhood”, in Geoforum 28(2): 219-235. Ward, C. (1977) The Child in the City. London: Architectural Press. Ward, C. (1990) The Child in the Countryside. London: Bedford Square Press. Ward Thompson, C., Aspinall, P., Bell, S., and Findlay, C. (2002) Local Open Space and Social Inclusion: Case Studies of Use and Abuse of Woodlands in Central Scotland. Edinburgh: OPENspace Research Centre Report to Forestry Commission (in press). White, R. (1993) “Youth and the conflict over urban space”, in Children’s Environments 10(1): 85-93. Woolley, H., Dunn, J., Spencer, C., Short, T., and Rowley, G. (1999) “Children describe their experience of the city centre: a qualitative study of the fears and concerns which may limit their full participation”, in Landscape Research 24(3): 287-301. Teenagers and Public Space Literature Review: OPENspace Research Centre, Edinburgh College of Art/Heriot Watt University 26 Woolley, H. and Johns, R. (2001) “Skateboarding: the city as a playground”, in Journal of Urban Design 6(2): 211-230. Index