INECOLOGICALINTERGENERATIONALRE-IMAGININGJUSTICENEWHAMSO448CityDesign:ResearchStudio
Figure 1 Location of LBN and the Royal Docks.by(Mappingauthors)
1 4 5 ABSTRACT / CONTENTS 2
Figures 7-8 (above) Authors at an HameventoutreachinWestPark. (Authors, 2022)
Figure 12 (bottom) Collages were created by visitors to our activity stand and interactive teaching (Authors,session.2022)
Figures 4-6 News articles surrounding developments in the Royal Docks and school children’s participation at a climate strike. (King, 2019; Eurosport, 2021; Grimshaw, 2021)
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earlhamps,@2022)
Figure 3 Protest against the Sivertown Tunnel. (Stop the Silvertown Tunnel Coalition, 2021)
Figure 2 The Royal Docks in the early 1900s. (Newham Archives, 1935)
Figures 9-11 Earlham Primary School teachinginteractivesession. (Twitter -
Figure 13 (left) LBN is the most deprived in England for access to housing and local services. (Data source: MHCLG, 2019, Mapping by authors)
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HEALTH
THECONTEXTDNA OF INJUSTICE: GENERATIONAL CYCLES OF DEPRIVATION AND ABANDONMENT
Figure 15 Transport Accessibility PTAL Map of the Royal Docks overlayed with community infrastructure such as schools, community centres, and youth centres. (Data source: TFL, 2022, Mapping by authors)
Figure 14 (right) Most of the borough live in overcrowded conditions, with over 30% living in social housing. (Data source: ONS, 2011, Mapping by authors)
INJUSTICEAYOUNG
BOROUGH
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DEPRESSED LIFE EXPECTANCY CONCERNS FOR YOUNG GENERATION DEPRIVATIONDISLOCATION
CLIMATE CRISIS
ECOLOGICAL JUSTICE
Figure 17 Protest against the Sivertown Tunnel. (Stop the Silvertown Tunnel Coalition, 2021)
NEOLIBERALDOCKSDOCKLANDS
LIFE AND DEATH OF THE
Figure 16 Poster for Newham Campaign against the Airport. (Dunn and Leeson, 1986)
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Barry (1997: 43) combines environmental issues and future generations in a prescient quote: “Those alive at any time are custodians rather than owners of the Planet, and [so] ought to pass it on in at least no worse shape than they found it in.” The idea of “custodians” suggests that we are protecting something valuable for the shared benefits of the community. In contrast, the idea of “owners of the Planet” captures the libertarian and neoliberal world we are “trapped” in (Davies, et al., 2021).
COMMUNITY VS. ECONOMY?
However, the consequences of environmental issues for children are notably absent from the “forefront of climate change policy, advocacy and research” (Guillemot & Burgess, 2019). This is pertinent in the context of LBN, whose young people are particularly stigmatised, being frequently featured in the media as criminals and outcasts. However, many initiatives have demonstrated how youth have unique, largely untapped insight into solving complex problems in the neighbourhoods
Intergenerational justice explores relations between present and future generations in the pursuit of a fairer world. Caney (2018) argues that the concept of future generations has three different meanings: 1) those not yet born; 2) people not yet citizens (which includes children); and 3) all generations.
justice – and its focus on young people and future generations – provides the framework for our methods and interventions. Through our project, we advocate for radically democratic and participatory forms of governance to help repair from an ongoing history of unheard voices and capitalist-centred development, foster a culture of inclusion in a presiding culture of exclusion, and ensure the wellbeing of future communities in a time of ecological crisis.
INTERGENERATIONAL INCLUSION
Figures 18 (left) and 19 (right) Interview quotes. (Activist 1, 2021 and Activist 2, 2021) 6
“Marginalised citizens... are materially and existentially threatened by the decisions and actions of states” (O’Brien, et al., 2018: 22). As the future generation, young people are disproportionately impacted by choices made by policymakers; 24.4% of LBN is under 18 years old (Newham London, 2020). One approach to mitigate this is to revise the nature of democracy for the sake of future generations. Intergenerational justice requires intergenerational inclusion and participation (Young, 1990). The democratic participation of all generations ties together the generational chain in planning for a sustainable future.
The People’s Plan for the Royal Docks was a reaction to the imposition of Thatcherite politics on the people of LBN. With the Plan being defeated in 1986, the “ruling class” used their social power to promote a particular vision of justice: one that most benefits them (Plato, 2007). The dominant neoliberal ideology of Thatcher’s successors is ever-more powerful. We need to ask: “which theory of justice is the most just?” (Harvey, 1991: 594). Fundamentally different conceptions of justice divide Libertarians, who claim personal choice always trumps the common good; and Communitarians, who believe shared practises glue communities together for the good of all (Kymlicka, 1988; Kymlicka, 2002).
WHATTHEORY IS INTERGENERATIONAL JUSTICE?
in which they live (Open City, 2020; Percy-Smith & Carney, Intergenerational2011).
The Communitarian spirit of the People’s Plan lives on. Current LBN activists see the borough as an “ideological battleground”; where “local people are ignored”; where the People’s Plan became the “community bible”; in a fight against “capitalism”; for a world where “equality, inclusiveness, and mutual care are all important.” With London operating as a “Capital for Capital” for profit and speculation (Minton, 2017), we need to ask: “What social good is being produced - and who will benefit?” (Mason, 2016: 270).
Holding the power elites of industrialised nations accountable, children worldwide are calling for radical change (Cannon, 2019). They demand we all “safeguard the future living conditions for humankind” (Thunberg, 2019). This shift in global perceptions is in part a manifestation of “The Greta Effect,” as her climate strikes “Fridays for Future” went global (Zabarn & Tulloch, 2021) and inspired LBN’s own youth to take part in the international movement (King, 2019). How would the world look different if young people were listened to and taken seriously - as future citizens and in their own right?
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Figures 20 (left-top), 21 (left-middle) and 22 (left-bottom) Interview quotes. (Activist 2, 2021, Environmental activist and journalist, 2021 and Activist 3, 2021)
Figure 23 LBN young people on climate strike at the Stratford Centre. (King, 2019)
Figure 24 Greta Thunberg rallying crowds at a climate protest in Washington DC. (Silbiger/Vox, 2019)
“THE GRETA EFFECT”
Climate change will most affect “future citizens” (UNICEF UK, 2010). Yet chief executives and world leaders are driven by the “fairy-tale of endless economic growth” (Thunberg, 2019). There exists a tension between people in power, obsessed with the local present, and people out of power, especially children, worried about the global future. Barry (1997: 43) argues that “Sustainability always requires immediate action – which means action NOW!”
Figure 25 Institutional map of forces that impact LBN’s young people, with emphasis on built environment stakeholders. The green hammers indicates where our experimental methodology is directly intervening. (Authors, 2022)
The motivation behind our fieldwork is encapsulated by Berman (1984) when he writes, “Unless we know how to recognize people, as they look and feel and experience the world, we’ll never be able to help them recognize themselves or change the world. Reading Capital won’t help us if we don’t also know how to read the signs in the street”. If we are to seriously consider how to empower LBN’s youth, we must try to see and feel as LBN’s young people see and feel and apprehend the world.
EXPERIMENTSMETHODOLOGY INTO INTERVENTIONS
As illustrated in our institutional map (Figure 25), LBN’s young people are implicated in various structural forces that carry the power to shape their life chances and citizenship rights. These forces extend from international ideologies and national policies to planning and development systems. The institutional map attempts to outline various built environment stakeholders and the global processes in which they are entangled. Our grounded, experimental methodology enters the map at the local level, though community-based research has the potential to illuminate opportunities for intervening at higher scales.
Our project emphasises intergenerational justice in planning and governance by focusing on both institutional change and community empowerment amongst LBN’s young people. We seek to shift predominant views in urban planning from “participation in planning” to “participation as planning” (Frediani and Cocina, 2019); from adhering to neoliberal development schemes to prioritising sustainable investment in local communities.
Thus, we explore not only what it means for practitioners and governments to really listen to the marginalised, but also ask what it might look like to encourage voice in people who are used to being perceived as voiceless.
Our interactions with LBN residents are part of a longerterm research process and short-term intervention. In the immediate term, we test the efficacy of various methods from a practitioners’ perspective. These questions include: What are the daily experiences and concerns of young people in LBN? How can LBN better meet the needs of young people? What engagement methods encourage LBN’s youth to actively reflect on issues of ecological justice at local and global levels?
At the same, our methodology guides our thinking for more aspirational questions such as: What does it look like for practitioners to really listen to young people? What engagement methods enable LBN’s youth to feel like their voices matter and that they belong in the public realm? What engagement methods cultivate a greater sense of environmental responsibility, political agency, and imagination in children?
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Moreover, there are cultural barriers to participatory governance amongst LBN youth. Evidence shows that young people across the UK struggle to feel a sense of community (Uberoi and Johnston, 2021) and participate increasingly less in democratic processes (Tanner, et al., 2021).
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2. AIR QUALITY AUDIT PROGRAMME
Finally, the Queen’s Market and Green Street renovation programme conducted surveys and workshops with LBN residents from different ethnic, cultural, and age-groups as part of the planning of public spaces (Newham Council, 2021c). While this programme is the most successful of all the examples, the programme remains limited to one project.
Figures 26-29 (top-bottom) Interview quotes. (Youth Coordinator, 2021; Royal Docks Team, 2021; Parent 1, 2022; Parent 2, 2022)
TOKENISTIC PARTICIPATION
A youth coordinator (2021) in LBN shared how young people in the borough “lack ambition and don’t see a bright future for themselves”. Hence, the question of how to achieve truly participatory governance is one not only about policy, but also about bottom-up empowerment: how do we raise the next generation to be active participants in political processes that shape their neighbourhood and the world?
Although these initiatives are seen as part of participatory planning, little is actually changed at a structural level. The programmes rely on top-down initiatives and flawed governing systems, rather than cultivating bottom-up democratic power and establishing widely accessible channels for people to partake in the design of their neighbourhoods. Citizens are prevented “from confronting and challenging discourse and prevailing orthodoxy about the way the urban ought to be constituted” (Legacy, 2017: 425).
The Newham “Local Plan Refresh” is conducted by the Council to involve citizens in strategic planning. The Council asked residents about the prospect of engaging young people in the planning process. However, some respondents displayed a negative attitude towards youth participation, claiming young people do not have the capability to understand planning and should not be a priority (Pratt, 2019; Newham Council, 2021b). These responses indicate the ongoing neglect of young people’s opinions in the planning system, stemming from an intergenerational disconnect between age groups.
1. NEWHAM “LOCAL PLAN REFRESH”
A review of government-led engagements in LBN was necessary to identify strengths and weaknesses in existing systems. Current initiatives are predominantly conducted by Newham Council and the GLA. We examined three engagement programmes.
The respondents also complained about the Council’s heavy use of professional jargon and vague questions. They also remarked how online formats and platforms were hard to use, locate, and offered few language options (Newham Council, 2021c). This further reveals the undemocratic and performative nature of current engagement by the Council.
3. QUEEN’S MARKET & GREEN STREET
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The Mayor of London’s Air Quality Audit Programme involved detailed site-based research for air pollution mitigation at LBN’s Keir Hardie Primary School. It made recommendations for reducing emissions and exposure through air filtration systems and infrastructural improvements for the school. Still, the programme pointed to insufficient funding and policy support from the national government. It also admitted that the realised interventions remain short-term and small-scale (Mayor of London, 2018). The programme demonstrates the current failure of the government to move beyond performative means of engagement, seeking technical fixes for large-scale structural problems.
ANALYSISBACKGROUND OF CURRENT ENGAGEMENT
During the course of one month, we received ten responses. This low response rate mirrors the survey used for LBN’s “Local Plan Refresh”, which received 31 responses over the course of three months (Newham Council, 2021d). Our survey’s results, although not substantial, shaped the direction of our subsequent experiments into interventions.
ONLINE SURVEY THE LIMITATIONS OF DIGITAL OUTREACH
We first attempted to engage with LBN’s young people and those who work and/or live with them through an online survey. The survey aimed to compare environmental perceptions between age-groups; inspire people to reimagine their surrounding environment; and educate people about LBN’s local plan. In these ways, the survey acted as an experiment into one aspect of a broader participatory planning process.
The survey experiment demonstrated limitations of the online format. Due to the ethical risks of engaging directly with people under 18 years old, we limited respondents to those 18 and above, and distributed the survey through organisational gatekeepers. The survey effectively limited accessibility to those who are digitally literate, have access to the internet, and know English, which is problematic in culturally diverse LBN. The survey format also foreclosed the possibility of having a two-way, dynamic conversation about the lived experience of young people and their opinions on planning and politics.
Figure 30 Selected results from online survey. (Authors, 2022) 10
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FACE-TO-FACE ENGAGEMENT
PARK ACTIVITY STAND
Figure 31 Map of Newham with green, yellow, and red post-its contributed by various passers-by. (Authors, 2022)
Figures 32 (top-left) and 33 (bottom-left) Authors at West Ham Park. (Authors, 2022)
Figure 34 (right) Friends of West Ham Park was incredibly helpful in putting up posters around the park to publicise our event. (Authors, 2022)
The results from the session might be of relevant interest to practitioners, as they are to the teacher we worked with at the school, who said that it inspired her to adjust her own curriculum. The students responded very positively and engaged eagerly in the activities and discussions. They were evidently excited about the prospect of getting involved in urban design and planning. Ultimately, the session serves as an insight into how education in LBN might play a big role in raising future local and global citizens that seriously care about the environment and want to actively participate in planning and other political processes.
spatially, and temporally (Figure 36). We then encouraged them to create a collage of their imagined public space. The collaging materials were mostly the same as the ones we provided for the activity stand, but with the addition of libraries and youth centres based on young people’s suggestions. We asked the children how they felt about their creations and visualised their comments in a word cloud (Figure 37).
The goal of the session was to explore what a potential lesson in a broader civic-oriented curriculum on planning and climate change might look like. The interactive activities in our lesson were partially inspired by property group Grosvenor’s (2020) toolkit for engaging young people in planning. The lesson encouraged the students to think about the spatial and sensory aspect of their experiences, involved discussions about intergenerational ecological justice prompted by a video on Greta Thunberg talking with Sir David Attenborough, and included a minilesson on sustainable urban planning. We helped structure the students’ thinking with a worksheet, asking them to describe their dream public space sensorily, socially,
Figure 35 Earlham Primary School interactive teaching session. (Twitter - @earlhamps, 2022)
We subsequently partnered with Earlham Primary School, who allowed us to hold a 90-minute teaching session with their student council, a group of eight children ranging from seven to eleven years old.
Figure 36 Educational materials used for interactive teaching session. (Authors, 2022)
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INTERATIVE TEACHING ENGAGEMENTSESSIONINTHE CLASSROOM
Figure 37 This word
RESEARCH
(Authors, 2022) 13
generated
During our teaching session, when asked what environmental justice is, one student replied, “It is to make the environment better for everyone!” Another passionately commented how “no one did anything for the last 30 years!” when asked what stood out to them from the video where “Greta meets David Attenborough”. We were particularly struck by the artistic expression of young people at Earlham Primary and West Ham Park and the frequent depth of meaning in their creations.
Our fieldwork shows how, when given the opportunity, both the young and old in LBN are enthusiastic to grapple with issues of intergenerational justice. During our conversations at the park, parents often contemplated their own childhood in LBN and the futures of their children. Some contrasted their time visiting youth centres with the lack of such centres now. Parents in this way unknowlingly carry on the communitarian spirit of the People’s Plan by reflecting on the need to repair intergenerational injustices in their neighbourhoods.
Our engagement generated important questions that shaped the trajectory of our proposed interventions. Having contacted 45 different community groups, we have come up against many barriers that contribute to young people being marginalised in research, governance, and planning.
METHODOLOGICALSUMMARY TAKEAWAYS cloud was from the students’ summaries of their collages at the end of the session.
Along with the logistical challenges of engaging people under 18 years old, organisations and schools have limited capacity to accommodate external groups, being severely underfunded and short-staffed due to the neoliberal “roll-back” of the state (Brenner & Theodore, 2002). We had a particularly difficult time reaching teenagers, a difficulty that many other organisations attest to experience. This prompts us to think about what resources would be required to ensure consistent and effective engagement with young people of all ages.
In-person, interactive activities were dramatically more effective in drawing residents than other methods like an online survey or plain conversation. This encourages us to think about similar activities and how they might be scaled up. Notably, collaging was very effective with youth; children did not need to understand English in order to partake and gain from the experience. Furthermore, we found the park and school to be valuable spatial resources for reaching our target populations.
These realisations along with other lessons we learned from conducting our session at Earlham Primary School inform our thinking about how policies and broader education reform aimed at cultivating environmental responsibility, political agency, and imagination might look like.
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(Authors, 2022) 15
Figure 38 All these collages were created by visitors to our activity stand and interactive teaching session.
Figure 39 Our interventons are a holistic set of proposals implementable at multiple levels. (Authors, 2022)
“infrastructure of engagement” for LBN (Figure 39), we explore what it means for practitioners and governments to truly listen to the marginalised and give voice to those traditionally rendered voiceless, from institutional and interpersonal perspectives.
Figure 40 A shift to a zero or positive discount rate would urge developers to consider future generations, strengthening accountability among stakeholders. The benefits are also expotentially larger than current system’s. (Authors, 2022)
Our proposed interventions are grounded in a deep and rich understanding of LBN, rooted in multiple approaches to primary research in the borough. We advance a set of multiscalar interventions that involve new legislation at the national level along with borough-level interventions that re-imagine the way young people are educated, provide safe spaces for cultivating political agency and imagination in youth, and give young people legitimate power in the planning process. These interventions will seek to capitalise on synergies between different scales while building on the extensive work already being performed by organisations in LBN.
The framework of intergenerational justice along with our interactions with residents on the ground enable us to imagine a new kind of urbanisation: one which reorients stakeholders away from tokenistic engagement and short-term profits to the importance of seriously accounting for young people and future Envisioninggenerations.anew
A NEW “INFRASTRUCTURE OF ENGAGEMENT”
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PROPOSED INTERVENTIONS
Nonetheless, the 2010 Equality Act is crucial: it is the first landmark document laying out a Public Sector Equality Duty (PSED). Public authorities are legally obliged to eliminate discrimination, harassment, or victimisation. They must advance equality of opportunity and foster good relationships between people of protected characteristics and others. Sackman (2018, quoted in Dewar, 2018) maintains that “a local planning authority needs to ask itself whether it has discharged the PSED and whether it can show evidence that it has done so... the duty [requiring] a thorough analysis of equalities impacts”.
act would have far-reaching implications how money is allocated, helping to repair from historic disinvestment in community assets, organisations, schools, and housing; it would also provide the financial support for infrastructures of engagement. In a world where “the market has captured the State” (Wacquant, 2012), the act would be a significant step towards “[switching] off the neoliberal privatisation machine” (Mason, 2016: 273).
Weitzman (2009) argues that costs and benefits should not be approached from a merely economic standpoint. Economic debates distract policymakers from ethical issues of intergenerational justice (Milner, 2013). This is especially problematic when irreversible losses of ecosystem services and negative social and health consequences are imminent. Ultimately, discounting future generations because they occur later in time indicates a weakness of the imagination (Ramsey, The1928).Future
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Today, it is severely insufficient to merely ensure any lack of negative consequences. The act would oblige institutions to contribute positively to future generations in order to repair from historic injustices. It would formalise the need to create healthy, safe, and comfortable environments for young people and ensure that these cannot easily be destroyed by budget cuts.
NATIONAL INTERVENTIONS
APPRAISALS AND EVALUATIONS
THE FUTURE GENERATIONS ACT
However, a deeper analysis of LBN’s planning processes has shown that this “duty” is often assessed at a superficial level. The Planning Inspectorate report of the LBN Local Plan, for example, only elaborates on the PSED in a short paragraph, without due regard for individual characteristics.
THE FUTURE GENERATIONS ACT
Generations Act would compel developers to be transparent about the rising costs of socio-ecological disinvestment. A shift to a zero or positive discount rate (Figure 40) would urge developers to consider future generations and strengthen accountability among public and private sector
Therefore, a new Future Generations Act should be created to institutionalise the need for public and private sectors to account for future generations in processes and decisions (Mazzucato, 2021). The act would introduce a clear new ideological claim recognising how young people are marginalised and disproportionately subjected to injustices. The act would build on momentum catalysed by the Welsh government’s creation of a Commissioner for Future Generations (Balch, 2019) and the Today for Tomorrow Campaign’s establishment of a UKwide Future Generations Commission (Geraghty, 2022).
Ultimately,stakeholders.the
A key manifestation of the Future Generations Act would be a drastic rethink of how appraisals and evaluations are executed. In the UK, the Green Book (HM Treasury, 2020) is often referred to when cost-benefit analysis is carried out. These analyses are often used to decide whether a project should commence. A discount rate is used to value future benefits to present values. Unfortunately, the present UK discount rate of -3.5% prioritises present benefits rather than future benefits, rendering future generations powerless.
While a new legal act at the national level may seem daunting, it would ambitiously provoke various actors to consider their processes and decisions in radical ways. New developments and other public service provisions would be evaluated on the basis of their impact on future generations, challenging practitioners to better design public spaces, include young people in democratic processes, and build resilience into frameworks.
The 2010 Equality Act brought together various legal instruments concerning discrimination and marginalisation. It introduced protected characteristics, including age, disability, pregnancy and maternity, race, sexual orientation, and others. While ideas of intergenerational justice are touched upon by “age”, in policy circles, that has typically referred to the elderly. Halford (2010: 3) argues that “there are some significant gaps in this broadened scope, most troublingly around the provision of public services to children”.
Inspired by our work with Earlham Primary School, we believe that the education system can play a significant role in cultivating democratic power amongst LBN’s youth (Figure 41). Indeed, enhanced school curriculums are proven to increase civic engagement amongst young people (Barrett and Pachi, 2019). Critically, to make sure the voices of young people are not lost in the process, school leaders should come together with the borough in a proposed Future Generations Council tasked with advocating for youth and those who will come next.
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The path to an updated curriculum is not as challenging as one would expect. The Royal Town Planning Institute and Royal Institute of British Architects already have plenty of wellcrafted resources for teachers and students. Additionally, with the Department for Education taking the lead, partnerships should be formed between the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, GLA, local authorities, local developers, and local organisations. This comprehensive network of support would allow teachers and students to benefit from wide-ranging expertise.
EDUCATIONAL
SCHOOLSINTERVENTIONSFORDEMOCRATIC EMPOWERMENT
Studies have shown how young people across the UK are democratically disengaged (Uberoi & Johnson, 2021) and are the least socially attached to their neighbourhood compared to other age-groups (Onward, 2021). Our interviews with residents reveal how LBN’s youth in particular feel uncomfortable partaking in democratic planning processes, disempowered about the future, and marginalised in the built environment (Activist 1, 2021; Organisation Leader, 2022).
TRAINING AND RESOURCES
While examining the GCSE curriculum for Geography, it is clear that many issues are covered by instructors; however, breadth is often prioritised over depth. Given the urgent state of the climate emergency, themes of ecological justice and planning should be given greater weight in the classroom
FUTURE GENERATIONS COUNCIL
UPDATING THE CURRICULUM
In LBN primary schools, all pupils should be educated on urban planning and climate change through a “Sustainable Planning” module. In secondary schools, pupils should partake in a studio project through a “Democratic Design” module, which would allow students to explore local issues on the ground while contextualising them within a global context. This module would create the opportunity for intergenerational dialogue and the participatory design of local spaces. These reforms to school curricula have the opportunity to influence the wider London education system.
Also, a Future Generations Council should be created. The new Council would consist of community leaders (e.g. headteachers, youth coordinators, social workers) charged with representing the young people they serve. As in all of our proposed interventions, there should be a greater focus on empowering disadvantaged young people who experience intersecting forces of oppression due to their race, socioeconomic class, disability status etc.
Unlike a UK Citizens’ Assembly (n.d.), the Council should be allowed not only input on initiatives but also have voting power on development proposals. Community leaders should be offered free access to online training on planning and policy. Tasking adults with representing the young people they are close to assists with the mediation of potentially conflicting views between age-groups and helps address problems of selective representation. Over time, students who have embarked on the new curriculum should have the opportunity to join the Future Generations Council, increasing their legitimacy of power.
CONTEXT
Schools are the primary means through which society can empower young people. We propose using the infrastructure, resources, and talents already embedded in the school system as tools to engage young people in a meaningful and ongoing dialogue about the future of their neighbourhoods.
REFORM SECONDARYRECALIBRATEINTEGRATEPRIMARYSCHOOLSCHOOL
UPDATING THE CURRICULUM
Based on our own experimental teaching session, we recommend that lesson plans should generally:
Figure 41 Our proposed reforms to the current education curricula. (Authors, 2022) 19
Figure 42 Graphic representation of a new multi-functional youth hub in currently vacant thames barrier building. (Authors,
NEIGHBOURHOOD INTERVENTIONS
YOUTH HUBS
2022) 20
Figures 46 and 47 (above) Shipman Youth Zone’s frontage is uninviting and land is currently under-utilised. The youth centre can be physically expanded and fences removed to create an inviting space. This extends the youth hub beyond the physical building and allows it to form relationships with other social infrastructure like schools and community centres. (Authors, 2022)
REGULAR PLANNING ENGAGEMENT
URBAN ROOM PRECEDENTS
Figure 48 (below) Location of youth hubs and its relationship and spatial connections to surrounding community and social infrastructure. (Authors, 2022)
Figure 44 In Changsha, China, the urban room features a section on historical development, showcasing the city’s growth over centuries. (Authors, 2022)
Figure 43 NLA Central London model at Kings Cross, London features a cafe, seating areas, exhibition panels, and weekly events. (Authors, 2022)
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SPATIAL IMPLICATIONS
Figure 45 Singapore’s City Gallery features a model showcasing upcoming projects while incorporating fun and playful ideas from various competitions. (Authors, 2022)
UPDATED INSTITUTIONAL MAP
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All in all, our proposed interventions aim to foster democratic intergenerational inclusion, future-conscientious governance, and institutionalised care for the young and marginalised. Here, we briefly outline how we foresee these interventions being enacted across different timelines. We emphasise the importance of reviewing, improving, and sharing successes while building upon networks and systems across space and time.
NEW INSTITUTIONAL MAP
INTERVENTIONS
Zooming back out, we want to reflect on how our interventions have addressed the structural issues our institutional map illustrates. Our proposed infrastructures of engagement would advance intergenerational justice by formalising youth contributions to planning, increasing opportunities for young people to engage with political processes, and fostering in youth a greater sense of community and belonging in the public realm. The Future Generations Act and reformed planning system would reshape predominant ideologies and processes driving development, while new youth hubs, revised education systems, and the Future Generations Council would help cultivate bottom-up democratic power.
IMPLEMENTATIONOVERVIEW TIMELINE
Figure 50 Our institutional map showcases how our various multi-scalar interventions create new formal, iterative pathways for LBN’s youth to participate in planning and democratic processes. (Authors, 2022)
IMPLEMENTATION TIMELINE
IMPLEMENTATION TIMELINE
UPDATED INSTITUTIONAL MAP
Figure 49 Implementation Timeline. It is imperative to recognise that this is an ongoing project, forever reviewing, improving, and sharing successes and failures. (Authors, 2022)
With an abiding focus on intergenerational justice, our project suggests unconventional and important connections between research, democracy, civic education, spatial design, temporality, and positionality for an ecologically just world. We believe such connections should facilitate the mutual transfers of (local and professional) expertise, cultivate political agency and imagination, and promote the careful and deliberate listening to the most marginalised.
ACONCLUSIONCALLTO RE-IMAGINE
Our project would not have been possible without our community partners in LBN, who have been our constant source of motivation and inspiration throughout our research. In interviews and unexpected interactions, LBN residents and those that have dedicated their lives to serving and advocating for them regularly shocked us with their kindness, generosity, and insight.
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It is our conviction that intergenerationally democratic governance is required in order to create neighbourhoods and cities that are truly sustainable – in both environmental and social terms. Our planned and spontaneous interactions with people in the field have paved the way to our envisaging an alternative urbanisation for LBN and London. We recognise how the institutional is just as important as the interpersonal: democracy is a matter not only of creating channels for engagement but also of activating the voices of those accustomed to being silenced.
We finally pay special regards to our fellow friends and colleagues at the London School of Economics and Political Science. In particular, we would like to thank the Cities programme faculty – David Madden, Suzanne Hall, Julia King, and Fran Tonkiss – for their astute guidance. They continually challenged us as researchers and scholars, helping us hone our methods and frameworks.
This section is not to be included in the word count.
THANK ACKNOWLEDGEMENTSYOU
We are particularly grateful to Earlham Primary School and Friends of West Ham Park for allowing us into their communities and providing the necessary supports for our in-person engagement. Both organisations went above and beyond in sharing not only their time and energy, but also their material resources (e.g. gazebo, chairs, tables, tape, scissors, space). We are also grateful to Caramel Rock, Bonny Downs Community Association, and Fresh Paint Newham for helping us distribute the online survey. We deeply thank everyone for their trust and collaboration.
While we believe spatial interventions are important, alone they are inadequate. We maintain that reforming the processes behind spatial developments must take precedence. Ecological injustice in LBN has resulted from broken ideologies and systems, which must be amended in light of the sheer weight of historical harms and our moral obligation to communities of the future. Communitarian justice demands greater responsiveness to those voices calling for bolder action on urban inequality and climate change.
We believe comprehensive physical and social infrastructure that builds on existing community capacities is required to achieve democratic inclusion at multiple scales. In the end, we hope our project acts as a call to listen hard to the long silences – of the young, the marginalised, and those of the future – and to create openings wherever we can for those unheard voices to finally emerge.
Parent 1 (2022) Parent at West Ham Park - personal interview with the research team; 2022.
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Climate strikes: Greta Thunberg calls for ‘system change not climate change’ – here’s what that could look like. [online] Available from: Citizens[Accessedchange-not-climate-change-heres-what-that-could-look-like-112891,theconversation.com/climate-strikes-greta-thunberg-calls-for-system-https://12February2022].Assembly,(n.d.)
Plato (2007) The Republic. London: Penguin Classics.
Youth Coordinator. (2021), Representative from a community organisation. Personal interview with the research team; November 16, 2021.
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Pages Figure14-1538:Collages by children in West Ham Park, and Earlham Primary School students (2022). [photos] At: authors’ archive
Page Figure1639-40: Authors (2022)
Page Figure2042: Authors (2022)
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FIGURES
Page Figure1941: Authors (2022)
The Economics of Labour: Robin Murray, Industrial Strategy and the Popular Planning Unit. Available from: https://robinmurray.co.uk/glc-ppu [Accessed 12 February Figure2022].23: King, J. (2019) Newham school children on climate strike [online] Available from: Figurenewham-3232044https://www.newhamrecorder.co.uk/news/climate-strike-[Accessed12February2022].24:Silbiger/Vox.(2019)
Figure 2: Newham Archives (1935) Newham Archives and Local Studies Library Available at: Figurereminiscing-on-the-royal-docks-4359/https://thamesfestivaltrust.org/whats-on/the-islanders-[Accessed12February2022].3:Darlington,B.(2019)
Figure 36: Authors (2022)
Figure 46: Google Maps street view 2022 [Accessed on 12 February 2022].
Figure 47: Google Maps street view 2022 [Accessed on 12 February 2022]. Edited by authors (2022)
Figure 28: Quote from parent 1. Interview with parents at West Ham Park, 22 Jan 2022
Page Figure1030: Authors (2022)
Page Figure2143-45: Authors (2022)
Figure 48: Authors (2022)
Greta Thunberg is leading kids. Available FigureFigurePageFigurePagestrike-fridays-futurehttps://www.vox.com/2019/9/17/20864740/greta-thunberg-youth-climate-from:[Accessed12February2022].825:Authors(2022)926:Quotefromyouthcoordinator.Interviewwiththeresearchgroup,16Nov202127:RoyalDocksTeam(2022)
Figure 12: Collages from park stands and teaching sessions (2022) [Photographs] At: authors’ archive.
SO448 CITY DESIGN RESEARCH STUDIO RE-IMAGINING INTERGENERATIONAL ECOLOGICAL JUSTICE IN NEWHAM