Next Generation Urban Governance in Colombia's vanguard intermediary Cities

Next Generation Urban Governance in Colombia’s vanguard intermediary Cities (NextGenC) will investigate the way youth actors engage in urban governance in intermediary cities, how digital technology and datafication changes this engagement, and how both relate to the momentous shifts in democratic practices.

In cities across Colombia, youth movements recently spearheaded political change, centrally supported by new digital platforms, data and social media. The degree to which next generation urban governance is utilised in intermediary cities, however, is not clear. Neither do we know whether young people benefit from increased use of digital technology in urban governance.

This collaborative project aims to understand the contributions of empowered youth actors to governing intermediary cities, to assess digitally enabled youth participation and digital era governance, and to strengthen progressive urban governance. Against this backdrop, three research objectives underpin the proposed project: 

Focusing on three vanguard intermediate cities, the research investigates the spheres of youth actors, city government and city-level private/civic actors, alongside their interactions. The project’s targeted impact is to strengthen youth participation in intermediary cities as part of next generation urban governance. This is achieved through academic, local and international actors, and public engagement. 

This project brings together three distinguished academic institutions; ICESI University, Los Andes University and the London School of Economics; and two praxis partners; Despacio and UCLG (United Cities and Local Governments) for an internationally embedded, comparative TYPCities project focusing on Colombia.