How do we build our cities? Which initiatives exist to make cities more welcoming and inclusive towards women?

1. We live in androcentric
cities
Why we need more women in urban
planning, architecture and real
estate development

2. City signs all around the world
are mostly male
• Maya Barkai, the artist
behind the public art
project “Walking Men
Worldwide,” has been
collecting images of
crosswalk light symbols
from cities across the
world since 2004.
• She estimates that of
about 180 different
symbols in her collection,
roughly 10 are gendered
female.
• http://walking-men.com/

3. Some examples of cities with
female signs
• Amersfoort’sfemale crossing
symbol is named “Sofie.”
• Saragossa,Spain’s figure in a dress;
La Coruña, Spain’s figure with a
ponytail and skirt.
• The Ampelfrau (“crossing light
woman”) of Zwickau and Dresden in
Germany similarly wears a dress and
pigtails.
• Odense, Denmark. Instead of
attempting to distill its entire
populace into a single figure, this
city chose simply to honor one of its
most beloved residents, Hans
Christen Andersen.

4. Aruna Sankaranarayanan from Mapbox:
“Street names sort of define the identity
of a place”

5. Mapbox mapped 7 world metropolis
and found out that only 27.5% of the
streets were named after women
• A new interactive map from Mapbox developer
Aruna Sankaranarayanan and her colleagues
shows just how scarce female streets are in
major cities around the world.
• The group mapped seven cities: London, Paris,
San Francisco, Mumbai, New Delhi, Chennai,
and Bangalore.
• They found that, on average, only 27.5 percent
of the studied streets had female names.

7. San Francisco

8. London

9. Mumbai

10. Paris: Many of the 166 women honored were
wives and daughters of famous men

11. 2% of French streets are named
after women

12. 97% of Paris metro stations have
a male name

13. Only 9 of them have a female
name

14. So, a feminist group in Paris decided
to rename 60 streets in honor of women

16. Same initiative in Paris metro

17. Or New York subway

18. The situation is similar in Spain
• 90% of Spanish streets are named after men
• And those honoring women usually reference
saints.

19. 7 out of 273 metro stations in
Madrid named after women

21. And these “details” are
shaping the way we perceive
public space and women’s role
in history

22. Yet, a change is coming

24. In Barcelona, the total number of
streets named after women went
from 7% in 1996 to 27.7% in 2010
• 1961 streets identified in Catalunya thanks to
#nomenclator website. #amnbnomdedona

25. Now Paris is trying to give
female names to its new streets

29. The classic example of
public bathroom
From sign to design

30. First the signs

33. Then the lack of human centered
design

34. Disproportionately long lines not
only drain women’s time, but the
wait can be physically painful
COLIN HAWKINS VIA GETTY IMAGES
Source: Soraya Chemaly

35. Women are socialized to quietly
deal with physical discomfort
• Women need to use bathrooms more often and for longer periods of time
because:
– we sit to urinate (urinals effectively double the space in men’s rooms),
– we menstruate,
– we are responsible for reproducing the species (which makes us pee more),
– we continue to have greater responsibility for children (who have to use bathrooms with
us),
– and we breastfeed (frequently in grotty bathroom stalls).
– Additionally, women tend to wear more binding and cumbersome clothes, whereas men’s
clothing provides significantly speedier access.
• But in a classic example of the difference between surface “equality” and
genuine equity, many public restrooms continue to be facilities that are
equal in physical space, while favoring men’s bodies, experiences, and
needs.
• Legislation to address the design and provision of public restrooms in new
construction often requires more space for women’s rooms. But that has
hardly made a dent in many of our oldest and most used public spaces.
Source: Soraya Chemaly

37. On average, men take 30 seconds to use the bathroom,
according to a Time magazine report about potty
parity. Womentake 90 seconds.
• In an ideal state of public convenience, the
thinking goes, women would not have to
endure the long queues created by a simple
1:1 allocation of toilet space, female-to-male.
• It is waiting times, not toilet seats, that
should be shared equally.
• 83% of registered architects and an eerily
similar percentage of legislators in the U.S.
are the very people least likely to have to
wait in lines.

41. In a more global perspective,
cities are not designed for
women

42. Modulor Man, the mascot of Le Corbusier's
system for re-ordering the universe
• The Modulor was meant as a
universal system of proportions.
• The ambition was vast: it was
devised to reconcile maths, the
human form, architecture and beauty
into a single system.
• This system could then be used to
provide the measurements for all
aspects of design from door handles
to cities, and Corbusier believed that
it could be further applied to industry
and mechanics.
• As is often said, a six-foot rule is
hardly fair to women and children.

44. Cities Aren’t Designed For Women
• Cities’ plans overwhelmingly don’t address women’s needs,
their planning or zoning boards aren’t aware of them and
local developers aren’t responsive to them, according to a
2014 survey of more than 600 planners.
• Some of the challenges women face may seem simple, such
as:
– having to navigate poorly maintained sidewalks or stairs with a
stroller
– use restrooms without trash containers or changing tables.
– avoiding public transit rather than facing conditions, like desolate
and poorly lit bus stops, that make them feel unsafe.
• The built environment — things like the accessibility of public
space, zoning for housing and transportation design —
can marginalize women and jeopardize their safety.

45. Different needs
• Women use cities differently from men in
many ways, according to the American
Planning Association and Cornell University’s
Women’s Planning Forum:
– They have higher poverty rates and different
housing needs,
– They are still responsible for the majority of
housework and childcare
– They have unique travel behavior related to their
combination of work and household
responsibilities.

46. A city’s layout imposes a significant time
burden on women
• Where resources like water or schools are
located matters as well.
• WHO estimates that 72% of the burden of
collecting water at standpipes, wells, rivers
and other storage units falls on women.
• The multiple trips a day to and from water
sources eat up women’s time, drawing them
away from other activities like education and
employment.

47. Women and men use public spaces,
buildings, and even access basic
services differently
• In areas where resources of all kinds are more limited,
these disparities become especially acute, affecting
women’s safety, movement and income.
• This is particularly true in parts of the global south,
where urban planning struggles to even keep up with
basic use – much less encourage gender equality.
• Separate toilet facilities for women at markets and
transportation hubs across the country are identified as
a key need.

49. Nowhere in the world has a city yet been
conceived and constructed along the lines that
these women planners would like.
• Nowhere in the world do women, and others who
share the inclusive goals of gender planning, have the
political power or access to capital that such an urban
renewal project would require.
– lack of workplace creches,
– continuing arguments about breastfeeding in public places
– concerns that women cyclists are more vulnerable to being
killed and injured on the roads.
• Such issues signal a more productive direction for
public discussion of the built environment, surely, than
the recent kerfuffle over the suggested resemblance
of Zaha Hadid’s 2022 Qatar World Cup stadium to a
vagina, or what we think of the latest skyscraper.

50. Top-down planning is never
effective
• The women who are potentially the worst affected in
unsafe conditions are the very ones who have no
voice in deciding the contours of the city or ways to
make it safer.
• One has often wondered why it is so hard to involve
communities in planning their own living and working
spaces.
• Urban design should better reflect the aspirations,
imaginations and requirements of all sections of the
population.
• Where should the public toilet be? Where should the
water source be located? Which is the best site for
the school?

51. Fewer than one-fifth of U.S. cities with
populations over 30,000 have female mayors
• There aren’t many women in political power or at the helm of
influential organizations that steer cities’ futures, said Daphne
Spain, author of Constructive Feminism: Women’s Spaces
and Women’s Rights in the American City.
• Women are often at the forefront of grassroots efforts to
address issues that affect themselves and their families, like
tenants’ rights and environmental hazards, but they’re
underrepresentedin leadership roles, Spain told HuffPost.
• Thirty percent of council members in the largest cities are
women, down from 33 percent in 2010.
• Women are underrepresented in the fields of
planning, architectureand real estate development,
particularly at the top.

52. The biggest decisions about urban
development are mainly made by men
• In the UK, where I did the research for this
article, one recent survey found the number
of women in architecture firms fell from 28%
to 21% between 2009 and 2011.
• “You had to clearly articulate the community
role of women” – and stresses that the built
environment means not simply buildings and
public spaces, but also “the way people are
in them”.

53. “We have policy blindness
around gender.”
• “We basically do not have good examples of
gender-sensitive planning in the U.S.,” Mildred
Warner, the Cornell planning professor who led
the survey with the APA, told HuffPost.
• Stop Street Harassment founder and executive
director Holly Kearl described the challenge of
getting her message to the Washington
Metropolitan Area Transit Authority several years
ago.
• They were “saying that one person’s harassment
was another person’s flirting, and it wasn’t a
problem on their system,” Kearl said.

54. Safety
Design is a feminist issue.

55. Today no feminist or minority-friendly city
exists yet
• In many parts of the world, women can’t even go out on their
own without being harassed, points out Caren Levy, who
once worked for Caroline Moser and is now a professor at
UCL.
• She studies public transport, an area of heightened concern
for policymakers in light of horrific crimes such as the gang
rape and murder on a Delhi bus in 2012 of Jyoti Singh
Pandey.
• But despite such tragedies, and the proof they provide that
women must be taken into account when strategic decisions
around transport planning are made, Levy says gender
remains at the fringe of policy debate, if it is there at all:
• “It’s clearly very hard to talk about questions of gender if you
don’t talk about people in the first place, and there are
elements of planning that are very technocratic.”

58. In France 100% of women have
experienced harassment in the
transportation system

61. In 2016, ActionAid conducted a
survey on street harassment in a
number of countries.
• They found that 79% of women living in
cities in India, 86% in Thailand, and 89%
in Brazil have been subjected to
harassment or violence in public, as
had 75% of women in London, UK.
• http://www.stopstreetharassment.org/resources/statistics/statistics-
academic-studies/ç

62. Source: Thomson Reuters

63. Basic safety is a top concern for women
in public spaces across the world.
• The statistics are sobering, more than 83% of Egyptian women
have been sexually harassed on Cairo’s streets; a rape is reported
every 29 minutes in New Delhi and only 12% of women in Lima feel
safe in the city, according to the UN.
• Originally launched in 2009, UN Women’s Safe Cities campaign
aimed to prevent sexual violence in pilot cities, and recommended
two straightforward infrastructure improvements in Delhi: more
streetlights and improving roadside toilets.
• Public toilets, particularly, are often insecure for women.
• The World Health Organisation (WHO) estimates that one in three
women around the world do not have access to separate toilet
facilities and must use communal facilities instead, which increases
their risk of sexual violence.
• A study in Cape Town’s Khayelitsha township showed that doubling
the number of properly functioning public toilets in the area would
reduce sexual assaults by 30%.

64. A right to safety
• Every woman wants to feel safe while going
to work, school or running errand.
• Sexual violence and harassment are another
reason women and girls experience cities
differently from men.
• Henriette Reker, mayor of Cologne,
was stabbed in the neck by a male attacker
the day before last year’s election.

68. The space issue

69. The dominant tends to occupy
more space
• In a waiting room, men tend to occupy more space than
women. Same about the use of the armrest in planes.
• Women tend to have smaller offices,smaller cars.
• Men tend to invade the personal space of women more
than the other way round. Men tend to touch women
more often than the other way round establishing the
domination relationship.
• When men feel their personal space is invaded, they
react aggressively.Women withdraw and flee.

70. Feminity is valued by the little
space occupied while manhood
requires spreading

72. This occupying the space
strategy tackles as well the
leisure space

73. Young men get the power to make public
space their own and to model it according to
their values.
• 75% of leisure urban equipments are designed for
boys.
• Free leisure places (skateparks, city stadiums) are
predominantly occupied by young boys.
• Girls rapidly don’t feel welcomed.
• Example of the swimming pool: how girls try to avoid
boys’ gaze: feel insecure and as if the space were not
theirs.
• This is reinforced by parents who limit their daughters
to go out and use public space.
• https://antisexisme.net/2012/04/09/le-genre-et-
lespace/

74. The dominating power of staring
• Men staring at you (even silently) does not make you feel welcomed
in the public space. Especially if they are in groups.
• Women learn very
young to adapt their
behavior:
– Lower the gaze.
Avoid eye contact.
– Try to dress differently
to be less noticeable.
– Change sidewalks.
• But the discomfort remains.
• Staring is power over as well.

75. Many stereotypes limit women
cycling

76. Women are taught to be more
cautious and care more about
their outfit

77. Women’s clothes restrict
movements or behaviours
• Tight clothes prevent large moves, women
with skirts or dresses have to be careful
so that their underwear is not seen.

81. So how can women reclaim
the public space?

83. “When society wants to keep a
woman safe, it never chooses to
make public spaces safe for her”
#whyloiter
• It instead tries to limit her right to this
space.
• It highlights the way in which the media,
as well as general discourse tends to
focus on the dangers that face women
who “dare to cross prescribed lines”.

85. Being in public space without any
apparent reason is not appropriate for
females #whyloiter
• #WhyLoiter initiative is also collaborating
with other feminist organisations like
Blank Noise, Feminism in India, Prajnya,
Queer Feminist India, Girls at Dhabas
(from Pakistan), The Fearless Collective,
Point of View and CREA.

90. In Karachi

91. In France

92. In Tunisia

94. A recent project entitled #WECount, between
the Women’s Equality Party and My Body Back,
sought to “reclaim our streets for women”

95. Take Back the Metro invites
transport systems to warn
passengers about sexist
violences (and not only about
pickpockets or the gap to mind)

96. In Cairo

97. In New York

101. Providing safe
transportation

104. WOMEN-ONLY TRANSPORTATION
SCHEMES

110. “Protection” has often been
used to repress people
• In previous centuries, women weren’t allowed to
go out without a chaperone, under the guise of
needing protection.
• In modern times, women in countries like Saudi
Arabia still live under protective rules where they
can’t drive a car alone, and must travel with a
male guardian in public.
• When you take away a woman’s agency, you take
away her freedom.
• This phenomenon is what Glick calls “the
protection racket”.

111. Segregation as a band aid
• “We want to cherish and protect women,
and these special spaces will do that,”
Chrisler explained to me.
• “But benevolent sexism is still sexism …
• When women are exposed to benevolent
sexism it interferes with their cognition
and how they see themselves.”

112. How do we transform our world culture
to one in which women are not
constantly harassed by men?
• “The real change has to come in how we
socialize men and how we punish sexual
assault,” said Glick.
• As things currently stand, we’re a long
way from a feminist Utopia.
• In the meantime, slapping some pink paint
on the problem is unlikely to solve it—but
at the very least, it could help save some
lives.

113. Designing a city with
women in mind

115. Gender mainstreaming has been in place in the
Austrian capital since the early 1990s
• In practice, this means city administrators create laws,
rules and regulations that benefit men and women
equally.
• The goal is to provide equal access to city resources.
• And so far, officials say it's working.

116. In the 1990s, a simple survey in Vienna led
urban planners to rethink their whole approach
to infrastructure development.
• The questionnaire asked residents why and how they used public
transportation, and the results were striking because men and
women had very different responses.
– Men’s typical route was short and simple: often to and from work.
– Women’s responses, however, were complex and varied, usually including
multiple trips a day on the metro as well as on foot: dropping off children
at school, going to the doctor, getting groceries, visiting an older family
member, back to school for pick up.
• This prompted a moment of realisation for Vienna’s city planners:
infrastructure has a gendered aspect to it; women and men have
different needs and uses for public structures and systems.
• As a result, the planners adapted transportation projects to
women’s needs, adding street lights so women were safer walking
at night and widening sidewalks to make it easier to move around
with walkers, strollers or wheelchairs.

117. Concrete examples from
Vienna’s experience
• The researchers observed that boys were often more assertive than girls;
when both tried to lay claim to a sports field or ball court, the boys usually
won.
• So planners from the gender unit hired landscape architects for six new
parks that included features such as high perches for girls where they
could see across the park; fences that had gaps in them, so they wouldn’t
feel trapped; and different ball and sports courts, so if one space was taken
over by boys, they’d have other options to play.
• They widened sidewalks and built huge ramps near a major intersection to
make movement easier for people with strollers, wheelchairs or walkers.
They added lighting to streets to make women feel safer at night, and
moved bus stops to spots where women felt comfortable waiting.
• Today, in a policy known as “gender mainstreaming” or “fair-shared cities,”
every design decision in Vienna takes into account the needs of girls and
women – as well as other often overlooked groups, such as immigrants and
the disabled.

118. “If you are using public space, you are also
becoming a public person,” says Kail.
• As Vienna has transformed, the political
aspect of the change has become
increasingly clear, says gender unit head
planner Eva Kail.
• “In Europe, starting with Greek democracy,
all the revolutions started in public places.
Political history is always connected with
specific spots in city. To be able to be in the
city, in the way you want to be, shows in a
really clear way what your chances in society
are.”

119. Examples of Gender criteria
• Sufficient lighting throughout the park and on park trails
• Adequate visibility around the area
• Some play areas close to adjacent to housing to permit social
monitoring
• A clear spatial layout of the whole park and play zones
• Multifunctional play areas, i.e. special areas for activities
favoured by girls, such as volleyball and badminton
• Hollows in the open field that can be used for ball games, as
arenas, for gymnastics, for sitting together and for
sunbathing
• Park keepers.

120. 1
GENDER MAINSTREAMING MADE EASY
Practical advice for more gender equality in the Vienna City Administration
Fdaftr
Executive Group for Organisation, Safety and Security (MD-OS)
Section for Gender Mainstreaming
Recommended reading:
Bergmann, Nadja / Pimminger,
Irene (2004): Praxis-Handbuch
Gender Mainstreaming
MA 57 – Frauenförderung und
Gender mainstreaming and promotion of women
Women are usually the ones most affected by gender-based inequalities. Therefore,
both gender mainstreaming and promotion of women should be applied to com-
plement one another. Specific promotion of women aims to make inequalities visi-
ble, rectify them, and provide special support (“repairing issues”). Gender main-
streaming uses those findings and attempts to change regulations and ways of
thinking in the long term so that inequalities no longer occur in future
(“prevention”).
Promotion of women Gender mainstreaming
directed at women considers the situations of women
and men
aims to rectify existing unequal
treatment of women
aims to change frameworks and
structures that create inequalities
provides measures for women integrates an equality perspective
into all measures
Typically female – typically male
Even though laws and regulations have granted women and men equal rights and
duties since the 1970s, gender roles are still very present in our society. The divi-
sion into “typically female” and “typically male” still dominates our thinking and
limits the scope of action and development of girls and boys, women and men. Al-
though the boundaries between what is considered female or male are more fluid
than 30 years ago, female apprentices still predominantly go into retail or hair-
dressing, while male apprentices tend to choose technical or manual trades. There

121. Principle No.4:
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If you follow these five principles, you will notice that
gender mainstreaming is easier than you think.

122. THE 4 R METHOD
The 4 R method is a very simple but highly successful gender analysis tool. It is the basis for
the application of gender mainstreaming in most areas addressed in this manual.
The 4 R method
Who (representation) gets what (resources) and
why or why not (reality and rights)?
is based on one core question:
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124. Recommended reading:
Doblhofer, Doris / Küng, Zita
(2008): Gender Mainstreaming.
Gleichstellungsmanagement als
Erfolgsfaktor – das Praxisbuch,
Heidelberg
3. Reality
Why is the situation what it is? How can it be changed? This step is a first assess-
ment of the background and causes of gender differences.
It questions roles, values and traditional ways of doing things.
• Are the different interests and needs of women and men taken into ac-
count?
• Are women and men who, e.g., seek advice faced with different
attitudes or preconceived notions?
• Is there a factual reason for the different treatment of women and men or
might it even be necessary in order to eradicate discrimination?
Example:
Girls and boys have the same general access to sports facilities. However, due to
different values in their upbringing, role models and the portrayal of sports in the
media, they are not interested in the same kinds of sports. Without targeted sup-
port and promotion, girls do not have the same opportunities when it comes to
sports as boys do.
4. Rights
Does the legal framework provide sufficient protection from disadvantages and
discrimination? Do not only consider laws but also ordinances and internal
regulations (e.g. access to subsidies or opportunity to use a facility).
• Are all target groups equally informed about the legal situation?
• Do the current regulations take the different realities of women and men
into account?
• What other regulations are needed to ensure equal opportunities?
Examples:
Do the legal regulations concerning opening hours take into account different life
and work rhythms (e.g. opening hours of kindergartens, counselling centres or

125. Recommended reading:
Doblhofer, Doris / Küng, Zita
(2008): Gender Mainstreaming.
Gleichstellungsmanagement als
Erfolgsfaktor – das Praxisbuch,
Heidelberg
It questions roles, values and traditional ways of doing things.
• Are the different interests and needs of women and men taken into ac-
count?
• Are women and men who, e.g., seek advice faced with different
attitudes or preconceived notions?
• Is there a factual reason for the different treatment of women and men or
might it even be necessary in order to eradicate discrimination?
Example:
Girls and boys have the same general access to sports facilities. However, due to
different values in their upbringing, role models and the portrayal of sports in the
media, they are not interested in the same kinds of sports. Without targeted sup-
port and promotion, girls do not have the same opportunities when it comes to
sports as boys do.
4. Rights
Does the legal framework provide sufficient protection from disadvantages and
discrimination? Do not only consider laws but also ordinances and internal
regulations (e.g. access to subsidies or opportunity to use a facility).
• Are all target groups equally informed about the legal situation?
• Do the current regulations take the different realities of women and men
into account?
• What other regulations are needed to ensure equal opportunities?
Examples:
Do the legal regulations concerning opening hours take into account different life
and work rhythms (e.g. opening hours of kindergartens, counselling centres or
public offices, school holiday care for children)? Do laws concerning the minimum
width of sidewalks consider the needs of pedestrians or people with prams?

126. Gender budgeting allows you to
implement gender balanced the
financial planning
• The City of Vienna spends a lot of money for its
citizens in many different areas every day.
– Which proportion of that money benefits women and
men?
– Applying gender mainstreaming and promotion of
women in procurement ensures
that the money also contributes to the equality of
women and men in private business.
• The goal is to distribute the budget equally among
women and men.

127. Mixed communities, mixed
neighbourhoods, and mixed land use
make for a greater sense of safety.
• Women in public spaces reported feeling safer when
there were “eyes on the road”, when there were
people around: vendors, shopkeepers, rickshaw
drivers and others who use the streets and make a
living on them.
• Women feel safer when they can freely use local
transport and move around without any threat or fear
of sexual harassment.
• The “sanitisation” or “beautification” of cities, where
working class communities are re-located to distant
sites and street vendors are taken off the roads,
actually ends up making them more prone to crime
and generates a feeling of insecurity.

128. Incorporating women’s needs
starts with better data
• The good news is cities around the world have made
progress incorporating the needs of both genders in infrastructure
planning, but this has not yet been institutionalised everywhere.
• As a first step, we need a better understanding of how women and men
experience and use public spaces. Sometimes the implications are
counter-intuitive to typical planning. For example, urban investments that
focused on “cleaning up” and beautifying cities in India drove off roadside
hawkers and street vendors. But it was these extra eyes and people on the
street that helped women feel and stay safe.
• Currently, the limited amount of urban datasets that track and trend data on
gender make it hard to develop infrastructure programmes that factor in
women’s needs. According to the Hunger Report, 92% of gender specific
economic data and 76.9% of gender health data is missing from sub-
Saharan Africa. Cities and municipal authorities should mandate that
existing surveys or other forms of input from residents mirror the
demographics of the area – proportional to the gender balance and also by
age.

130. One of the encouraging areas of
change is in public transit
• Several U.S. cities have acknowledged the issue of sexual
harassment and worked to combat it with publicity campaigns and
tools that allow victims to easily report it.
• There’s more that can be done, however. For example, a Toronto-
based organization created a “safety audits” program, which allows
women to identify where they feel unsafe and has been replicated in
cities around the world.
• Considering women’s concerns doesn’t hurt men or other groups.
Instead, it helps cities reflect the needs of all residents, Warner and
the other researchers argue in their report:
• Asking “Would a woman feel comfortable walking here at dusk?”
and getting an affirmative response likely means that most people
will feel comfortable using the space. Women can be used as a
bellwether for safety, as well as other planning priorities. Regarding
transportation planning, women are choice riders: if more women
ride transit, more people will ride.

140. Gendered patterns
in use of space
> Poorly considered land-use zoning policy
separates residential areas from employment
locations, with a greater impact on women’s
mobility.
> Women make more complex journeys
than men, often travelling to childcare,
school, work, and shops. More than twice
as many women as men are responsible
for escorting children to school.
> Seventy-five per cent of bus journeys
are undertaken by women
> Only thirty per cent of women have access
to the use of a car during the daytime.
> Poor public transport and lack of caring
facilities and shopping outlets near
employment locations restrict women’s
access to the labour market.
> Women feel less safe than men being out
alone after dark, especially in the inner city,
or social housing estates.1
A virtuous circle?
When planning takes into
account the different
needs of women and
men, this means:
> public transport
routes that support
women’s travel patterns
> measures to make public
space feel safer at night
> more support facilities, such as local shops,
childcare, and public toilets
> employment opportunities locally, meaning
more mixed use development
> more women would be able to take
employment, training, and leisure opportunities
> economic development opportunities would
be increased
> social inclusion programmes would be
more effective.
Gender Equality Duty on public authorities to look at the barriers, examine
planning levels, and recommend changes, giving examples of good practice.
Land-use planning provides the spatial setting for government policy,
shaping the way our towns and cities are designed. However, planning
policy tends to ignore the fact that women and men use public space very
differently and have different concerns about how it meets their needs. For
more detailed guidance, we recommend the Royal Town Planning Institute
Good Practice Note on Gender and Spatial Planning (RTPI, 2007)
Planning policy
tends to ignore the
fact that women
and men use
public space very
differently
continued overleaf…
section
ocuments/
ate
y G.Alber
Women
nts
ernment
Planning
ng: The
l Town
on
rating
ing:
of
by Louise
University
g.uk
re?:
Royal
art
on
ation.
Gendered patterns
in use of space
> Poorly considered land-use zoning policy
separates residential areas from employment
locations, with a greater impact on women’s
mobility.
> Women make more complex journeys
than men, often travelling to childcare,
school, work, and shops. More than twice
as many women as men are responsible
A virtuous circle?
When planning takes into
account the different
needs of women and
men, this means:
> public transport
routes that support
women’s travel patterns
> measures to make public
space feel safer at night
Why is planning a gender issue?
Looking at gender issues in planning is central to success in economic
regeneration and social inclusion. We take the opportunity of the new
Gender Equality Duty on public authorities to look at the barriers, examine
planning levels, and recommend changes, giving examples of good practice.
Land-use planning provides the spatial setting for government policy,
shaping the way our towns and cities are designed. However, planning
policy tends to ignore the fact that women and men use public space very
differently and have different concerns about how it meets their needs. For
more detailed guidance, we recommend the Royal Town Planning Institute
Good Practice Note on Gender and Spatial Planning (RTPI, 2007)
A place for everyone?
Gender equality and urban planning
A ReGender Briefing Paper
Planning policy
tends to ignore the
fact that women
and men use
public space very
differently

141. ney patterns between home and work,
e represented on decision-making
ation committees.
ut what really concerns both women
, public participation needs to
nclude them.
Gateway Forum, as a result of a new
h to participation, pioneered innovative
involving women in decision-making,
onally ‘male’ technical transport
. Rather than restricting consultation
dy agreed policy issues, women
n in the community were encouraged
heir concerns. Women drew
on to station toilet provision,
fety at unstaffed stations, and
off-peak journey provision for
part-time workers.7
4. Local authority planners, using
a proactive approach, have a major
role in ensuring gender is taken
into account locally. For example,
Leicester has established a model
gender monitoring system in its
evelopment control department.15
Local
ority technical departments can have
nd effect on women’s access to,
ement within the built environment.
h has found that if public toilets are
able at transport termini and in city
within walking distance, some women
ravel at all.8
g law is influential. Reasonable
quirements should be included in
lopment plan (with detail provided,
sary, in a SPD). The move from land
patial planning, which takes into account
social, environmental and economic
s, should reduce the risk of reasonable
quirements being ‘ultra vires’ (‘beyond
An inclusive and creative aproach to
g gain’, through Section 106 agreements
lt in gender-related provision, such as
irement for childcare provision as part
ommercial development.9, 10
Recommendations
Getting policy and
practice right
> Gender should be a
key consideration in all
overarching policy areas
including sustainability policy
and economic development.11
This would also contribute
towards high-level policy objectives in
social inclusion, housing policy, healthy cities,
crime reduction, liveability, transport planning
and urban regeneration (Department of
Communities and Local Government, 200612
).
> Revisions to national planning guidance,
including Planning Policy Statements, should
incorporate advice on the gender implications
of specific planning policy topics. Gender
guidance at national level should be cascaded
down through the Government Offices, and
taken into account by Regional Development
Agencies, strengthening government support
for gender-sensitive planning at local planning
authority level.
> Local planning authorities should develop
gender-disaggregated statistical data on the
needs of men and women, when monitoring
transport planning policies, use of facilities
and types of development, complaints,
feedback and public participation exercises.
> Gender considerations need to be taken
into account at the local planning level, on
development control practice and management,
and in all aspects of local area decision-making.
To make this requirement effective the scope
and remit of planning law needs clarification
and revision to accommodate the requirements
of the new equality agenda, and the Gender
Equality Duty in particular.
> Local authority technical departments, and
transport operations need to develop awareness
as to the different impact of their work on
women and men. Areas of responsibility
include design and maintenance of street
lighting, highways, railway stations, public
toilets, refuse disposal, and street management.
> Planning policy should take into account
the requirements of women as well as
men in the location of different land
uses and the transport links between
them at strategic and city-wide level.13
> More public transport routes are
needed within and between local
areas, especially in the suburbs and
for more off-peak provision for those
undertaking part-time work locally.
Hearing from women and men
> The specific needs of women and men need
to be actively brought into “Statements of
Community Involvement”, now a statutory
requirement in the new planning system.
Practical issues such as when, where and
how meetings are held, and a more open,
proactive approach is needed, rather than
a fixed agenda to comment on.
> Men are the majority of planners and urban
decision makers, and they need to be aware
of the different needs of women and men.
Examples of good practice include gender-
sensitive training schemes for planning
inspectors.14
Gender awareness training
should be integral to educational programmes,
degree courses, and Continuing Professional
Development alongside other overarching
issues such as sustainability and
transportation policy.
> Women should be encouraged into the built
environment professions, such as surveying,
architecture and engineering. There are fewer
women in the commercial sector of property
development and therefore there is unlikely
to be an consideration of gender issues in
the deliberations on regeneration schemes.15
For example, currently, the Royal Institute
of British Architects is acting upon research
recommendations to recruit and retain more
women architects.16
> Guidance and support is already out there:
the RTPI Toolkit (RTPI, 2003) and the Equality
Score Card (RTPI, 007) enable local planning
authorities to integrate gender considerations
into planning.
Gender should
be a key
consideration in all
overarching policy
areas including
sustainability policy
and economic
development

145. Nine female mayors out of 57
high-profile cities provides hope

146. Future vision
• Cyvette Gibson, Paynesville’s first female:
“I always say women build differently than
men. Men build for today but women build
for tomorrow because we’re interested in
making sure we have some form of
security for our children. That’s why we
elected a woman as president in Liberia –
we knew we needed a woman to rebuild
our nation.”

147. Different perspective
• While not every woman mayor is a feminist with
the specific goal of improving the lives of women
in their city, it is still the case that women bring
with them a set of experiences different in
important ways from those of many of their male
peers.
• “If you’ve never tried to put a buggy on a bus, you
don’t really understand what many women’s
experience of public transport is,” Childs says,
adding that there’s a burgeoning argument for
childcare to be thought about as infrastructure –
not just roads and rail.