Placing Youth in the 'Spatial Turn': An Intersectional Analysis of Youth Experiences in a Changing Neighborhood

This study examines often-overlooked youth perspectives on the sociospatial changes happening in a community experiencing Black displacement, mass Latinx immigration, and impending gentrification. To date, studies of complex urban change rarely consider the ways in which young people perceive and produce place differently from adults. Drawing on Critical Race Spatial Analysis and related literature, this critical phenomenological study centers the experiences youth of color living and learning in South Central Los Angeles. In doing so, this article draws on walking interview data from a larger place sensitive study. This study found that youth of color in South Central derive keen, intersectional insights into the dialectical relationship between the social and the spatial just by living their lives. They learn to "read the world" around them and in doing so, develop complex understandings of the sociospatial phenomena that surrounds them. The article concludes with a call to value the intellect of urban youth in research and public policy.