Lindsey Smith is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Geography and Planning at The University of Toronto (St. George) and holds a PhD in Medical Sciences from the University of Cambridge. Dr. Smith’s research focuses on built and social environments as targets for promoting sustained healthy behaviours, social equity, and more environmentally sustainable communities.
Project tittle is Healthy Youth in High-rises. The project is led by a team of researchers from the University of Toronto, the University of Waterloo, and Western University, in collaboration with Urban Minds, a non-profit organization that engages youth in equitable and sustainable city building.
The research aims to explore the health and equity implications of high-rise neighbourhoods for youth. High-rise housing is increasingly being directed to accommodate rapidly growing urban populations in Canadian cities, yet supply for family and youth-friendly units is limited. The project therefore aims to capture youth perspectives on high-density living, particularly in areas with unequal access to health-promoting amenities such as green space. It uses creative participatory methods to engage youth in Toronto and Kitchener-Waterloo as co-creators of the research to better understand how high-rise neighbourhoods impact their physical and mental health, and to identify urban design solutions that support healthy equity.
Led by PhD student Luísa Duarte Milani, with support from colleagues at Urban Minds, the team conducted 22 geo-logged go-along interviews and six focus groups involving participatory mapping exercises. Youth emphasized the importance of high-density environments featuring social, cultural, and activity sites, vibrant streetscapes, restful natural spaces, as well as safe transport designs to address mobility constraints and provide opportunities to play or engage in health-promoting activities. Apprehensions related to sanitation and maintenance issues, a lack of spaces designed to include youth, and inadequate transport and streetscape designs that lowered levels of perceived safety and deterred youth from travelling through certain areas.
The co-created research ensures youth have meaningful opportunities to be heard and respected, and to share their perspectives on high-rise living, health, and urban design solutions. This policy- and practice-relevant information is of value to stakeholders in multiple sectors including professional planners, urban designers, developers, and the public health community. Additionally, the participatory methods employed, which involved combined geo-logged audio recordings and momentary survey responses, offer valuable opportunities for researchers exploring mobility and place-based topics. A forthcoming paper will detail the methodological contributions to qualitative rigour and provide guidance for replicating these methods in future studies.