In search of a ‘Geography of Youth’: Why young people should matter more in local and regional development studies

Young people as a ‘denied agency’

Territories are evolving organisms, even if they are often trapped in existing and sometimes obsolete trajectories (i.e. what economic geographers and scholars in the fields of regional and urban sciences call ‘path dependence’; see Martin and Sunley, 2006). This calls for change in many geographical areas, in general and especially in these uncertain times of polycrisis (Lawrence et al., 2024). Our world is undeniably threatened by numerous worrying economic, social and environmental problems, with our societies giving the impression of beating a dangerous retreat on fundamental societal challenges such as social rights, civic rights and the pressing need to make our economies greener and more sustainable.

In this regard, the work of scholars on human agency (see the editorial by Sotarauta and Grillitsch, 2023; and the related special issue of Regional Studies) has had the merit of going beyond the structural properties of local and regional areas to focus on how individual and collective agents can make change possible. The concepts of innovative entrepreneurship, institutional entrepreneurship and place-based leadership (Grillitsch and Sotarauta, 2019) have prompted scholars to consider the processes and mechanisms (agency) and individual or collective actors (agents) that can alter, to varying degrees, established development paths and existing institutional contexts (Jolly et al., 2020).

In this recent, but growing and already well-established literature, several key change agents have been identified and studied: innovative firms (Isaksen et al., 2019), local entrepreneurs (Grillitsch and Sotarauta, 2019), policymakers and political decision-makers (Benner, 2024; Calignano and Nilsen, 2024a; Dawley, 2014), or even fringe actors (Jolly et al., 2020). These studies have helped to shed light on how local agents can mobilize resources, participate in decision-making processes, possibly help to open up institutional opportunities and activate new fruitful development paths.

On the other hand, much less attention has been paid to ‘denied agency’, as Eadson and van Veelen (2023) have rightly observed recently. Echoing Rainnie (2021), these authors argue that the concept of agency at the local level is not yet fully developed, while at the same time highlighting the existence of a kind of ‘inclusionary bias’ due to the tendency shown by scholars to focus almost exclusively on participation in local networks and decision-making processes rather than non-participation. We support this line of reasoning and seek to reinforce with this article the idea that it is necessary to go beyond the agents already included in development path processes, with the consequence that those other actors that have tended to be neglected in local and regional development dynamics, and not adequately studied so far, must be given careful and due consideration (Eadson and van Veelen, 2023).

Among the actors ‘that don’t matter’ (paraphrasing Rodríguez-Pose, 2018), who are denied the possibility of having their say in the development dynamics of their territories, preventing them from being an active part in the processes of territorialization, there are young people. In recent years, young people have been the object of a certain attention in the field of geographical studies (the term ‘Youth Geography’ has actually already been used and understood as a sub-branch of ‘Children’s Geography’), but this has mainly concerned the field of urban studies, with particular reference to the use of public spaces by these types of actors. Public space, in fact, is a first ‘battlefield’, especially at a local scale, between young people and adults, who reproduce their social, cultural and political hegemony precisely in the organization and management of urban public spaces (Boccaletti, 2024; Pettenati and Dansero, 2017).

As the critical reflection within this line of studies underlines (Holloway and Valentine, 2000), young people can be protagonists and social agents, putting into action specific modes of appropriation and/or resistance to the forms of control imposed from above (Hil and Bessant, 1999), carving out their own spaces. Today, there is an increasingly urgent need to investigate the ways in which the younger generations participate in public and community life, which differ from those of adults in the specific ways in which they do so, in order to support greater inclusion of young people in the transformation processes of society.

Whichever way one looks at it (potential change or agency actually denied), what we believe is that young people have been culpably neglected in local and regional development studies. This leads us to call for a ‘Geography of Youth’ in which young people’s views, ideas, opinions, aspirations and narratives of possible futures are thoroughly reported and successfully integrated.

It would therefore be appropriate to develop themes within the framework of the ‘Geography of Youth’ that go beyond the relationship between young people and the urban public space (Boccaletti, 2024), focusing also on issues concerning the participation in public life in general by the new generations, analyzing what is already being done at a political level and what could still be done to make young people protagonists of their future and in the management of social change. In this regard, it is interesting to note that a popular initiative bill called ‘Generational quotas in institutions’ has been presented in Italy in favour of introducing minimum representation quotas for the different generations, guaranteeing young people an adequate space for participation. This bill is signed by young activists and administrators from the south. All this highlights the need for greater participation of young people in public affairs, a need also felt by some of those who already hold the social, economic and political ‘hegemony’ (Famiglia Cristiana, 2025).

According to Eurostat (2025), on 1 January 2024, more than one-fifth of the European population was aged 65 years and over, with the median age of the EU population being 44.7 years (Eurostat, 2025). In short, Europe is getting older and older and this clearly has serious implications for local areas and regions in the EU. Among others, we can mention the pressure on public spending and healthcare, as well as the power relations related to voting behaviour and related political implications. For example, the reallocation of fiscal resources could be spent on pensions and public services provided to the elderly population, at the expense of education, social housing, or public infrastructure, which young people need more (European Commission, 2022).

Moreover, critical decisions at various geographical scales are in the hands of the elderly. The case of Brexit is emblematic in this regard, with the ‘Inter-war’ and ‘Baby Boomer’ generations voting massively for ‘leave’ (61% and 55%, respectively) and the younger ones, on the contrary, voting largely for ‘remain’ (55% in the case of ‘Gen X’, a percentage that drastically increased to 72% in the case of ‘Millennials’) (Norris, 2018). What makes these results even more sobering is the fact that the observed percentages between younger and older voters became even more polarized after the EU referendum. If the older generations, who represent the majority in Western countries, decide for everyone, the active participation of young people will naturally decrease due to disaffection and the feeling that their vote does not count. This is evidenced by the fact that, two years after the Brexit referendum, only half of 18- to 24-year-olds were certain to vote in the event of a second referendum, compared to 84% of those over 65 (for details see Curtice, 2018). The same voting pattern can be observed in other parts of the world, such as the United States, where younger voters – although not overwhelmingly as in the past – gave the Democratic Party the strongest support in the 2024 elections (Circle, 2025). So, to cut a long story short, is it fair for older voters to mortgage the future lives of young people?

In search of a ‘Geography of Youth’

The low engagement of young people in critical decisions and the lack of consideration of their legitimate interests and ambitions in terms of local and regional politics, together with the disheartening realization that they do not count enough when decisions are made, can lead to the polarization of the youth vote as an effect of their discontent (see, e.g., what happened in the recent case of the general election in Germany; Mittereger, 2025). This vote, which has a protest connotation, and its related subnational geographical characteristics have already been extensively and insightfully documented in the literature with regard to the entire population (Rodríguez-Pose, 2018; Rodríguez-Pose et al., 2024), while a focus on young people seems more necessary than ever for the reasons outlined above and in view of the apparently unstoppable demographic decline in which most Western countries are trapped. On the contrary, we argue that politicians at local and meso levels in other geographical areas characterized by different demographic trends should free young people to express themselves and benefit from possible new and original opinions on how future developments should be.

For some years, young people from the ‘Fridays for Future’ movement have taken to the streets all over the world to claim their right to participate and live in a more sustainable world (Feller, 2019). Regardless of the evaluation of the movement and personal ideas on the matter, where have those young people gone? They seem to have been swept away by the post-pandemic world of war, green discontent and disturbing authoritarian drifts. Global phenomena, of course, but which bring with them a considerable impact at the local level and in the territories geographically closest to those young people who claim – until a few years ago noisily and today more silently and only through their apparent disaffection – to be able to decide for themselves and for the benefit of the places where they live and where they would like to feel protagonists in the construction of a brighter and more just future.

In this regard, the EU Youth Policy Dialogues (European Union, 2024) are warmly welcomed by the authors of this article. Encouraging young people to express their views and integrating youth perspectives into the EU policy agenda is perfectly in line with what we believe is necessary when adopting a research perspective on local and regional development.

The younger generations represent the most progressive force in our societies and including their views in the study of the agentic dimension of local and regional development seems to us a priority. We could try to ask ourselves some questions: Where are they? What do they do? What are their dreams and aspirations? How do they see the future and what do they expect from it? How are they actually involved in local and regional policies and decision-making processes? Through which mechanisms and tools? How do they perceive their level of involvement? How would they like to contribute to the development of the local or regional areas where they live? How do they imagine those places in the future?

These and perhaps other key questions can interestingly inform the study of human agents by focusing on a denied agency (Eadson and van Veelen, 2023), which can potentially act as a real and decisive change agency if given the conditions to do so. Young people tend to be less conservative and significantly more open to new, original and innovative solutions. Their creativity, spirit and fresh looks at possible development paths need to be captured and systematically integrated into our studies.

Through which methodological approaches? Both qualitative and quantitative approaches are acceptable (from discourse analysis and in-depth interviews to large-scale surveys), if appropriate, while the co-mingling of economic geography with other geographical branches (e.g. social and cultural geography and population geography) and related fields (e.g. political science and sociology) seems to be desirable or even necessary.

This opinion piece represents a first attempt to motivate scholars to focus on the topic of youth participation in local and regional development, pending much more rigorous research. Younger generations have a critical role to play in local and regional development dynamics which, far from being arenas where diverse ideas are peacefully aired and debated, are highly contested, often conflictual and generally characterized by unbalanced power relations (Calignano and Nilsen, 2024b; Eadson and van Veelen, 2023). The future belongs to young people, and we scholars must not simply give them a voice, but amplify it, while providing politicians and policymakers with useful findings and clear guidance on how to turn young people’s hopes, aspirations and visions of desirable futures into reality, especially in this globally complex, uncertain and turbulent present.