Paper short abstract:

We explore how Tanzania's urban spaces hinder key psychosocial developmental processes for youth. City life shapes poverty and hardship and transforms the social norms and practices that nurture healthy psychosocial development, setting shaky foundations for future opportunities and well-being.

Paper long abstract:

This paper explores the ways in which Tanzania's urban spaces help or hinder the developmental processes young people undergo at this critical stage in the life-cycle. Drawing on a development psychology literature, we propose a four-fold framework for understanding youth development, analysing the ways in which the city and its social, economic and political landscapes influence psychosocial processes of building foundations, building blocks, building support structures and building aspirations. In doing so, we analyse the ways in which the city's (ever-changing) social, economic, spatial and political forces are internalised by young people, the ways in which young people can or cannot respond to these, and the ways in which this can enhance or constrain their psychosocial development. In doing so, we unpick what goes on in the black-box between difficult urban environments and the outcomes we see in terms of the dampened agency and aspirations of youth, highlighting the ways in which the structural forces and agential experiences of city life are internally-mediated by Tanzania's youth.

Through this, we begin to understand the earlier roots of the challenges urban youth face today: the ways in which the city not only shapes poverty and hardship for young residents, but also transforms social norms and practices, directly constraining or eroding these developmental processes. Where family support and socioeconomic status do not exist to protect young people in tough economic contexts, city life in Tanzania inhibits these four developmental processes, setting shaky foundations with consequences for future social and economic opportunities and well-being.