This study explores the potential of Minecraft as a game-based platform to engage youth, and particularly NEET youth, in urban planning discussions.

Methodology: An exploratory qualitative case study was done in collaboration with a Swedish municipality, using observations of modded Minecraft play sessions, interviews, and ethnographic data from an internship program.

Findings: Our data collection led us to identify four themes: (i) Minecraft Enables, the game supports visualization of planning ideas; (Ii) Minecraft Skills Enable, familiarity with the game facilitates participation; (iii) Preferences and Norms, personal ideals shape design choices; and (iv) Understanding Needs, limited awareness of urban functions constrains meaningful engagement.

Originality: Unlike prior studies focusing on children or general youth, this research examines NEET youth as a hard-to-reach group and positions Minecraft as a boundary object for participatory planning rather than a formal planning tool.

Contribution: This study contributes insight into the use of Minecraft in participatory planning with NEET youth, a rarely studied group in serious games literature and game-based approaches.

The inclusion of less represented voices in spatial planning is increasingly important, especially regarding how practitioners engage young people, that is a social group long been marginalised in city-making. This paper examines the potential of Photovoice as a tool for gathering insights into places that youth value or dislike. In collaboration with a Swedish municipality, nine young people participated over three weeks in an activity that led to a public exhibition. This study discusses how methods centred on visualisations of the city can strengthen participatory planning, amplifying youth voices, and integrating both the aesthetic and representational value of photos into change-making processes.

This study investigates decision support within the European geographical area. A total of 21 tools have been analysed leading to the identification of a few emerging trends. Predominantly concentrated in the northern part of Europe, these tools aim to assist urban planners in different ways. Findings reveal issues with tools accessibility and a rather weak focus on hard-to-reach groups, including youth. This study underscores the importance of addressing these gaps to ensure inclusivity and effective engagement. Additionally, the study finds a prevailing emphasis on advanced Information and Communication Technology techniques over qualitative data representation, which poses certain limitations to informed decision-making.

This study explores the role of young people in urban planning through the lens of procedural justice, focusing on their engagement and participation in research seeking to further youth use and perception of public space. Conducted in Huddinge Municipality, Sweden, the research involved youth as co-researchers in participatory mapping exercises to document their spatial preferences and experiences. Findings highlight the importance of inclusive urban planning that recognizes young people as legitimate stakeholders. Liked spaces were often those that supported social interaction, physical activity, and autonomy, while disliked spaces in the municipality were those the young respondents associate with fear and feelings of discomfort. This study casts a perspective on the need for planning practices that accommodate diverse youth perspectives and promote equitable access to public spaces. Despite challenges in institutional uptake, the research demonstrates the potential of youth participatory methods to inform our understanding and practice for advancing towards more just and responsive urban governance. This work contributes to ongoing debates on spatial justice and the inclusion of marginalized groups in urban decision-making.

Questions about who is included and excluded from spatial planning are shaping current debates about urban environments, including future-oriented inquiries about whose needs future cities will best serve. The role of children and youth in discussing and shaping urban futures is crucial, as these groups will inhabit the cities currently under development. In this paper, we report on an activity meant to explore novel ways in which young people can be engaged in debates about urban futures. This exploration comes at a time when changes in the Swedish national planning framework have taken place and youth has been recognized as a group in need to be involved in participatory spatial planning. We present findings from an activity where personas - fictional characters - were employed to involve a group of young individuals in discussions and co-creation of developments concerning the future of their living environments in the South of Stockholm. Our results suggest that personas serve as valuable elicitation tools for capturing diverse viewpoints and bridging abstract planning concepts with the lived experiences of young individuals. 

This paper explores the preferences and experiences of young residents in Huddinge Municipality, Sweden, regarding public spaces and meeting places. Using qualitative data from participatory mapping, the study reveals the importance of accessible green spaces, socialization opportunities, and safety perceptions in shaping youth engagement with public spaces. Areas perceived as unsafe or lacking youth-oriented amenities are not used and avoided. The findings suggest that integrating youth perspectives can inform more inclusive spatial planning practices, enhancing social connection, well-being, and active citizenship. This study contributes to debates on participatory planning and youth engagement in urban environments.

Rapid urbanization of Swedish cities leads to many challenges e.g. decreasing access to nature, safety and security issues, poverty, and increasing disparities. Addressing these and preparing for what is ahead in the decades to come is a critical aspect of urban governance. In the Nordic region, there is a growing interest in engaging with urban futures through foresight, visioning, and speculative thinking. In this study, we focus on Sweden and explore the use of such methods also with the ambition to understand how inclusive or not such activities are, and how are questions of sustainability included. 

The study compiles a dataset of 62 projects across Northern, Mid, and Southern Sweden, highlighting regional priorities and challenges. The projects aim to enhance urban infrastructure, promote social inclusion, address climate change, and engage youth in civic processes. Notably, 39% of the projects are located in vulnerable areas, reflecting ongoing concerns with socio-economic disparities. The geographical distribution of projects shows a concentration in Southern and Mid Sweden, with a notable increase in Northern Sweden in recent years. 

This study contributes to the understanding of how academia can partner with societal actors to promote sustainable urban futures and highlights the potential of future literacy in urban governance.

The discourse on environmental challenges has evolved significantly in recent years, with climate change emerging as a central global concern. This transformation has been heavily influenced by the last wave of youth-led social movements, notably the Fridays for Future movement, who have mobilized young people at a global scale contributing at a shift in public discourse on the topic of climate action. However, despite the impact of the newly emerged youth-led movements it is still rather unclear if and where has youth gained recognition as a group with special interests within environmental policy and governance. In this study we report on a research were we investigated the positioning of youth in contemporary environmental governance, and propose a theoretical perspective to understand how the subject category of “youth” is constructed in public discourse and its implications for political recognition. We study the progressive emergence of Greta Thunberg as a voice for a generation of youth climate activists and undertake a document analysis of selected material generated in relation to selected international political events. By addressing questions of recognition, discourse structure, and legitimacy, this research aims to shed light on the nuanced dynamics shaping the role of youth in environmental policy and governance.

Social movements are known to be a driving force of change processes. Scholars long had an interest in how social movements form, develop and fade out, and how such activism is shaping public discourse and policy change at different levels. Also, there has been growing interest in studying what motivates people to engage in activism and what they get activated about. Of special interest is the last wave of mothering activism – understood to be activism undertaken by mothers who mobilise and become active in groups and movements made of other mothers seeking change in the context of environmental equity and climate justice (Sengupta, 2022). Overall, mothering activism emphasizes the interconnectedness of personal and social change, the importance of addressing the needs and experiences of families and communities, and it puts forward care as a fundamental pillar and cornerstone for a better society.The latter is of a special interest to research that seeks to advance understanding of how an ethics of care could inform more contemporary governance models. Thus,we are interested to learn more about how mothering activism might be challenging models and ideas of care,and how it might be contributing at pushing and redefining care in the context of inter- and intra- generational equity. To the best of our knowledge no study of this specific aspect is currently available. With the ambition to fill this gap we undertook an inventory of mothering activism at a global scale. In this report we introduce the database developed in that process and summarise some first trends we observed emerging from that preliminary investigation.

Over recent years youth has emerged as an influential voice on the topic of climate change, raising the alarm about climate change-related risks and calling for policy action. Youth have been active and mobilising across squares and streets from where they called upon those in power to act on their duties to protect citizens from environmental harm and to secure a sustainable future. In addition to street protest, youth of different ages, including children, have been turning to courts to sue national governments for non compliance with national and/or international law, or conventions. Youth-led litigation appears to be emerging as a significant tool for promoting the representation and inclusion of young people’s voices in contemporary decision-making processes. In this report, we present the outcomes of a project activity where we sought to map and compile informationon litigation cases. The result of this activity is a descriptive database summarizing the status of youth-led litigation cases as of April 2023. In this document,we provide a summary of that information and highlight a few observed trends, which can serve as a resource for those interested in studying youth-led mobilization and its governance outcomes for a more sustainable future.