Young People helping to make Melbourne a safer city
In October 2008, the City of Melbourne held a City Safety Summit where people of all ages and walks of life talked about issues concerning city safety and possible solutions. As many of these issues directly affect young people, one of the big ideas to come out of the summit was setting up an online city safety forum for young people where they could comfortable talk about the issues important to them.
Web forum representatives
The web forum was created with the guidance of a Youth Safety committee whose members included representatives from the Australian Federation of International Students, National Union of Students, Step Back Think Campaign, Victorian Indigenous Youth Advisory Council and Youth Disability Advisory Service.
Your City Your Space forum was open for 10 weeks from 21 September 2009. The site was designed to encourage people aged 12 to 25 years who lived, worked, studied and/or visited the city to highlight issues and solutions around safety. Council made an undertaking to implement one of the solutions identified.
Posts received on the forum
Young people were invited to make posts to the forum in relation to eleven key themes which included :
- drugs and alcohol
- motor vehicle safety
- pedestrian and cyclist safety
- personal safety
- policing and security
- public transport
- sexual harassment
- sports safety
- venues and space
- violence.
Users could post comments and vote on the most important issues and solutions through a thumbs up/down rating system to provide a youth-led approach to city safety.
As part of the feedback process, young people registered so they could contribute to the forum. 164 young people from 89 Melbourne suburbs signed up and contributed, with nearly 2,500 visits to the site and 134 posts made, providing a wide representation of young people views on city safety.
Top five issues
Young people identified 134 issues related to city safety. The top five issues of importance identified by young people on the forum were:
- using commonsense when going out
- issues relating to lack of late night public transport options
- chromers on trains and trams
- violence on public transport
- boredom and lack of alcohol-free activities in the city.
Top five solutions
Young people were also invited to suggest possible solutions to the safety issues identified. There were thirty-five solutions identified.
The top five solutions identified were:
- more allocated bike parking
- implement an education campaign for motorists and cyclists
- youth-lead education campaign and action in relation to combating violence in the city at night
- increase the number of officials patrolling public transport particularly in the afternoons and at night
- run drug and alcohol free low cost and/or free activities and events for young people at night
Five potential project options were developed in relation to the top five solutions identified above. Four of the proposed options were informed by, and enhance, work currently being undertaken, while one option relates to new work. Council have approved the implementation of all five options.
Download more information
Download more information about the campaign and the projects to be implemented in 2010 – 2012
Full report
If you require a printed version phone (03) 9658 9658
Your City Your Space full report (PDF, 2.62Mb)
Your City Your Space full report (Text only, 253kb)
Summary report
Your City Your Space summary report (PDF, 1.97Mb)
Your City Your Space summary report (Text only, 63kb)
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