Young People are the Future? Comparing Adults’ and Young People’S Perceptions and Practices of Diversity in a Highly Diverse Neighbourhood

Abstract

As today’s cities are becoming more diverse, scholars and policy makers have become increasingly interested in the impacts of living in diverse neighbourhoods on people’s perceptions of diversity. While adults’ and young people’s perceptions have been studied separately, we know little about how different age groups living in the same neighbourhood encounter and experience diversity. In this paper we explore how adults (aged 35–65) and young people (aged 12–19) in Feijenoord, Rotterdam perceive neighbourhood diversity and how this is related to encounters with differences in public, semi-public and private neighbourhood spaces. We argue for combining generational and spatial approaches when studying perceptions of diversity by showing that these perceptions cannot be explained by age and the time people grew up in alone, but are also shaped by the different ways in which age groups use neighbourhood spaces and encounter others in these spaces.