Hur ungdomar uppfattar och använder staden : En studie av stadens offentliga rum med Nynäshamns kommun som exempel

In relation to the planning and current development that is taking place today in our societies, places are created and transformed in the form of public spaces that our societies include. In the process that comes with this planning, there are certain voices that are not heard. Certain dialogues, where the aim is to reach out to the people more actively and not only invite them to dialogue, can be a tool for seeking out these voices and improving the aspect of democracy that the dialogues in planning intend to strengthen. Teenagers are one of the groups that often are excluded when planning for the society. The adult population, which is the group planning for society, has different experiences and perspectives of the public spaces than teenagers have, of which the inclusion of this group in planning is of great importance. This study aims at highlighting how teenagers in the municipality of Nynäshamn perceive and use public spaces in the municipality, in order to contribute with relevant information in future planning as well as knowledge about teenagers needs and perspectives in public spaces in relation to planning. The municipality of Nynäshamn has similar urban development strategies that many of Sweden's municipalities have, of which the study delimited this site. To gain an understanding of this subject, the research has mostly used the study of Mats Lieberg (1992) in which he defined public spaces in relation to how they are used by teenagers, if the sites are used for the purpose of interaction or privacy. Björn Anderson's (2002) argument about how teenagers divide themselves into groups depending on belonging, Jeni Hardens (2000) statement that it is the people within a place that often is the reason for the experience of being unsafe, and Danielle van der Burgts (2015) arguments about how teenagers actively use information from media, parents and friends to weight whether the sites consist of risks or not have been included. The reason for this is to highlight complementary aspects that can affect teenager’s experiences of places and their use. The study has been conducted through dialogues in the form of focus groups, including two groups of teenagers. During these, the teenagers have identified places in the city from a positive and negative point of view, which then have been the focus of the discussions. On a selected number of these marked sites, observations have been conducted and an interview has been held with an urban planner within the municipality, this to obtain further information about the sites and the uses of these. The conclusions are that teenagers use the city's public places for their need of both interaction and privacy, to a various extent. The sites are perceived based on its characteristic features, the people who stays there, and the antagonism that exist between different groups of teenagers, which affect the use of the places. The important knowledge that the study generates in relation to planning for teenagers is the realization that the possibilities for creating spaces of different kinds that work according to their needs, need to be broadened. These possibilities can be broadened by means of complementary methods, as the needs can be difficult to express and convey in various conversations