Participatory Photo Mapping to Understand Youths’ Experiences in a Public Housing Neighborhood Preparing for Redevelopment

ABSTRACT

Many public housing communities are undergoing redevelopment into mixed-income communities, with researchers raising concerns that the redevelopment process may reinforce exclusionary practices and inadequately involve residents in the planning process. These concerns highlight the need to better understand residents’ views of public housing communities and the redevelopment process. To fill this gap, we elicited a detailed view of youths’ lived experiences within a Boston, Massachusetts, housing development preparing to undergo conversion into a mixed-income community. Using participatory photo mapping and interviews, we partnered with youth co-researchers in an assessment of important community spaces and neighborhood strengths and stressors. Results highlight neighborhood strengths such as social cohesion and stressors such as gun violence. Results also elucidate youths’ wishes for the redevelopment, including the creation of formal and informal youth-centered spaces. We discuss implications for policy and practice and consider youths’ suggestions in the context of current community development approaches.

KEYWORDS:

• public housing
• participatory research
• youth
• housing policy
• neighborhood poverty
• development/revitalization
• neighborhood
• mixed-income

Acknowledgments

We gratefully acknowledge our youth co-researchers for sharing their expertise and their community with us.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was funded by an Ignite Grant from the Boston College Office of the Provost.

Notes on contributors

Samantha Teixeira

Samantha Teixeira is an assistant professor at the Boston College School of Social Work. She holds a PhD in social work, and her current research focuses on how neighborhood environmental conditions affect youths and how youths can be engaged in creating solutions to environmental problems in their communities. She has published on the topics of place-based community interventions that address neighborhood environmental disparities, youth-led participatory research, and environmental justice. Her scholarship is shaped by her practice experience in child welfare, community organizing and development, and local government agencies.

Dabin Hwang

Dabin Hwang is a doctoral student in applied developmental and educational psychology at Boston College, and is engaged in mixed-methods research that addresses the impact of structural inequalities on youth lives. He holds a bachelor of arts degree from Harvard University.

Bryn Spielvogel

Bryn Spielvogel is a doctoral candidate in applied developmental and educational psychology at Boston College. Her research focuses broadly on the influence of context in youth and family functioning, with particular attention to neighborhood and community processes.

Katie Cole

Katie Cole serves as the Associate Pastor of Fourth Presbyterian Church of South Boston, MA. She has worked for 8 years with community partners to build power, develop leaders, and amplify a youth voice in neighborhood and community affairs. She holds master of divinity and master of social work degrees from Boston University.

Rebekah Levine Coley

Rebekah Levine Coley PhD is a professor and Chair of Counseling, Developmental, and Educational Psychology at Boston College. A developmental psychologist, her expertise lies in delineating the processes through which economic and social inequality are transmitted to children and families, employing quantitative, qualitative, and evaluation methodologies to inform social and educational practice and policy at the local, state, and federal level. She is the founding editor of the Child Evidence Brief series published by the Society for Research in Child Development, which seeks to translate developmental science for federal and state policymakers.