The street as a place to go: 'leisure careers'

I've been working on a project recently about positive activities - places to go and things to do for young people - and earlier this year at the APYCO conference the question of whether the Street is a 'place to go' came up. It's a theme I also heard at this year's Fed conference.

So I was interested to read Sarah Schulman's blog post today about a journal article that explored the 'Street corner society':

She writes/quotes:

It took the all too common occurrence of young people hanging around the street and put it in a new context. ‘Hanging around’ became conceptualized as a ‘leisure career’ alongside ‘school careers’ ‘work careers’ ‘family careers’ and ‘housing careers.’ ‘Leisure careers’ are the norm—in and of themselves, they are not a bad thing. In fact, quite the opposite, through informal interaction (away from parents, teachers, and formal authority figures) young people try out and rework their personal and social identities. In other words, informal interaction that occurs in informal spaces (i.e. not youth centres or youth clubs) is a critical part of the developmental process.
What’s problematic is when those spaces and interactions remain static and insular. As the authors write, “Repeatedly unemployed young men lacked the sites through which to establish new, more socially varied or geographically spread, social networks (p344).” This, for me, should be at the heart of our youth work—addressing some young people’s ‘network poverty.’ If we can come up with ways to expand young people’s informal social networks—and build more equal relationships between young people and adults—we could help ensure that young people’s leisure careers are an asset, rather than a deficit.

Which made me think of detached youth work - and I thought sharing it might be an interesting discussion starter. Best place to comment would be over on the original blog post rather than here....