ABSTRACT
This chapter reviews two United Nations programs that aim to include young people and their interests in urban placemaking: UNESCO’S Growing Up in Cities program and UNICEF’S Child Friendly Cities Initiative, with a focus on how this second program was applied in Denver, Colorado. Given these programs’ continuing influence, the chapter analyzes successes and setbacks with the hope that lessons learned may be useful to others who seek to integrate young people into urban placemaking. It suggests strategies to build stable alliances and secure leadership to advocate and plan for young people’s inclusion, in order to sustain processes of participatory urban design and planning with children and youth and create opportunities for continuing dialogue between young people and decision makers in city government and other institutions of civil society.
