Trustmaking
Bridging the Gap Between Youth and Urban Planning
There's often a gap between the desire for youth participation in democracy and how young people view their ability to influence decisions. While young people have the right to be involved in decision-making that affects them, city governments and policymakers are still figuring out how to effectively include youth in planning and implementation.
TRUSTMAKING is an innovative approach to this problem using the concept of Placemaking, which allows community members to reimagine and reinvent public spaces together. This method incorporates trust-building principles from various fields beyond urban planning. The goal is to build relationships of trust through hands-on public space creation with young people.
By focusing on trust, TRUSTMAKING aims to enable more active citizenship, inclusion, and community building – key elements of a safe city. The project has two main objectives: first, to provide European municipalities and urbanists with tools to incorporate trust-building principles in their work, and second, to support youth in becoming active changemakers in urban spaces.
TRUSTMAKING demonstrates the importance of inclusive design processes in civic life. It offers a path forward for democratic engagement in urban areas and contributes to broader goals like sustainable cities, green initiatives, and improved urban planning strategies.
The Oslo Trustmaking ULL, a concrete example of TRUSTMAKING, was a collaboration involving Natural State, Bykuben, and Herslebs VGS, aimed at fostering trust between youth and the Bykuben municipal department through participatory placemaking activities in the Herslebs schoolyard. This initiative sought to bridge that gap by emphasizing co-design and co-construction, allowing youth to see their ideas realized, thereby enhancing trust.
This approach goes beyond improving public spaces; it focuses on cultivating genuine engagement between young people and city planners, which contributes to the development of more vibrant and inclusive urban environments.
