My long-awaited book chapter w @welchbethanyj and Andrea Rusli is out! "Mindful Mapping: An Integrated Approach to Helping Youth Navigate Neighborhood Change" in The Routledge Handbook of Designing Public Spaces for Young People: https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/e/9780429505614/chapters/10.4324/9780429505614-35

We describe our work in South Philadelphia and the method we co-developed for engaging youth in the study of neighborhood change while also cultivating their sense of hopefulness and agency in the face of that change.

Low-income immigrant and refugee teens and their families in South Philadelphia felt overwhelmed by rising rent, closing schools, the reduction of open space for play, and the arrival of large chain businesses with age restrictions limiting access for youth.

@welchbethanyj and I teamed up with Kate Canino, a youth yoga instructor to develop a method that used traditional neighborhood mapping methods with yoga and mindfulness practice.

This approach equipped local teens with research tools to make sense of economic, political, and social forces re-shaping their community and provided them with mindfulness practices to mediate individual and collective anxiety about the negative effects of neighborhood change.

@welchbethanyj and the youth then went on to use their research skills and findings from this initial research project to advocate for change with city planners and commissioners and teach visitors about the assets of their neighborhood.

And now, these youth are all long on to bigger and better things because of the pace of academic publishing. But I am forever indebted to @welchbethanyj and all of the youth for sharing themselves and their experience of their neighborhood with me.

We called the method "somatic visual participatory mapping" - which is a mouthful, but we found a way to engage all of our senses and somatic selves in understanding this place. I challenge us to do that in planning practice more broadly.