ABSTRACT
This chapter establishes how austerity interacts with place, space and class to create new constellations of urban exclusion and inclusion for disadvantaged urban youth. It reveals how age, class and space come together to shape the social inequalities and spatial relations of austerity urbanism. Building on everyday accounts of austerity, it establishes the role of spatial, social and personal characteristics in shaping the pathways through which austerity enters and transforms the lifeworld and its everyday geographies. This chapter connects three specific dimensions of austerity urbanism – destructive creativity, deficit politics and devolved risk – to elements of social exclusion – not being allowed, not being able and not being willing to belong to society. First, it argues that the extreme economic rationality of austerity disallows urban life by disabling/discouraging stable employment and consumption. Second, it establishes how age and class of disadvantaged urban youth aggravate this disallowing of urban life. Third, it argues that the experience of exclusion affects youth’s sense of belonging, which presents itself as the desire to emigrate to countries that treat their citizens just and fairly. In conclusion, austerity urbanism creates new conditions of urban inclusion and exclusion along the lines of age, space and class.
