Skate urbanism - imagining towns and cities for wheeled urban sports

This talk was delivered at the final conference of the European Commission-funded Sport4Values project, which investigated the extent to which urban sports enabled young people to develop and demonstrate the 6 European Union values (Human Dignity, Freedom, Democracy, Equality, Rule of Law and Human Rights). The project was led by Phil Tulba and included partners from Sweden, Denmark, Latvia, Lithuania, Greece and the UK, with the municipality of Kaunas (Lithuania) a lead partner. This talk focussed on the learning points from cities that have successfully developed strong collaborative relationships between municipalities and grassroots organisations and NGOs, including Malmo, Bordeaux and Tampere. Drawing on the author's practice research, chairing of recent conference workshops, and literature review, it attempted to define key terms and identify strategies and discourses for engagement with municipal bodies for user groups involved in wheeled sports. Finally, it presented UK case studies, concluding with Nottingham - linking to a participatory design project involving Nottingham Trent University and educational charity Ignite! Futures and funded by UK Research and Innovation.