Challenging conceptions of young people as urban blight: Street children and youth’s ambiguous relationship with urban revitalization in Lima, Peru

Abstract

Government officials, city planners and elites frequently position young people, especially street children and youth, as detrimental to revitalization, contributing to urban blight and needing removal. Through an examination of urban change in Lima, Peru, this article challenges the assumption that street children and youth exclusively detract from urban revitalization. Although many young people have been negatively affected by Lima’s revitalization, I argue that conflict does not tell the whole story. Street children and youths’ reactions are often more ambiguous than many assume, and young people may even be central to some efforts to improve urban space. Further, an examination of street children and youths’ informal and formal efforts to negotiate public space reveals the importance of relationships to perceptions of urban change and the success of various urban revitalization efforts. Such relationships are often overlooked in binaries that represent street children and youth as either a problem or, less typically, the solution. Instead, this research indicates the need for a more nuanced understanding of young peoples’ relationship with the uneven production of urban space.