Risky Spaces: Young Peoples Geographies of Fear and Danger

Project Leader: Andy Zeleniec


Young people’s use of the public spaces and places of our towns and cities is increasingly represented in media and political discourses as at best a nuisance and at worst as a dangerous and malevolent social problem and public issue. Not only do youth, now as always, need not only time to grow but also the space in which to do it, away from the rules and surveillance of the monitored world of home and school.


This can lead to conflict and contestation over not only the physical ‘ownership’ of space but also the meanings and values attached to the shifting meetings grounds that become ‘their’ places.  These are increasingly subject to an increasing array of measures including surveillance, (CCTV) legislation (from ASBOs and curfews, tagging and sentencing) and policing (stop and search, arrest, exclusions, etc.)


All of these are spatial strategies and there is a need for an analysis and understanding not only of the activities that youth engage in that makes them ‘risky’ but also the places and space used and chosen by youth as their ‘preferred’ domain. There is then a distinction between the strategies employed and administered by those with power (adults, the police, council, etc) and the tactics employed by youth to challenge and contest the attitudes and strategies designed to control their use of space.


Through a case study of 'risky spaces in Newcastle-under-Lyme. The different geographies that comprise specific localities, neighbourhoods, spaces and places that may be investigated is complex. There are both small scale youth geographies associated with aspects of territoriality and the ‘ownership’ of local spaces/places as well as a larger scale, collective and potentially contested terrain associated with leisure and consumption activities, transport, education, etc where concentrations of  ‘being’ are conflicted with aspects of ‘belonging’.


Research Aims
The research will attempt to identify those areas popularly chosen and used by youth, their reasons for doing so, and the range of activities and behaviours represented. These will be contrasted with the experience and understanding of key local area managers who have responsibility for ensuring law and order and freedom and access to social space for all inhabitants.

These comprise a diverse range of stakeholders and professionals including town centre managers, the police, Council employees, local traders and businesses etc. In this there are a range of measures that can be employed in response to identified needs and priorities (economic, political, social, cultural, criminal justice, etc.). A key aspect of the research will be to compare and contrast the different meanings, values and understandings applied to identified ‘risky’ spaces in the Borough from both ‘adult authority’ as well as from a youth perspective. 

Key questions:

  • To identify which spaces in the borough are used by youth and which are identified as problematic

  • To investigate what problems and risks are identified with such spaces

  • To identify key features in the organisation and layout of such spaces that makes them attractive to youth and which may make them more manageable by space managers and authorities.

  • To compare different perspectives on why such spaces and youth activities are problematic with a view to proposing means by which this can be ameliorated or mitigated and with providing more amenable and appropriate spaces for youth to use


    For further information on this project, please contact Andy at: a.zieleniec@appsoc.keele.ac.uk