Across the world, cities have been designed for men, by men – especially young, healthy, cisgender men.
January 9, 2022
The gist:
Around the world, “as cities begin to realise (sic) these limitations, a small but growing number of them have begun to experiment with doing things differently – sometimes with surprising results”
Such “feminist approaches, which seek to co-create action for safe cities with women,” are starkly different from responses “which tend to focus on ‘smart tech’ initiatives like CCTV cameras,” instead of “simple changes like better street-lighting and mixed land use, which…are preferred by women.”
Women’s activist groups can play a major role here.
Public datasets that inform planners, such as open source Google Maps, depict cities through a male-centred (sic) gaze – most of the entries come from men. Thus, services important for women – such as hospitals, childcare centres (sic) and domestic violence shelters – are often missing.
GeoChicas, “a group created in Mexico in 2016, which has now spread to 22 countries across Latin America and Europe, organises (sic) mapping events so that women who face gender-based violence in Latin America can get safe, reliable information on where to go for help.”
And there is Safetipin, an organisation (sic) that began in Delhi, that “uses crowdsourced data from women to develop maps of unsafe areas in cities like Delhi and Bhopal, working with government and non-governmental partners to create safe public spaces for women to access, even at night.”
The faxx:
- Women typically constitute only 10% of the senior positions in architecture and urban planning worldwide, a grim statistic that tells us why cities are so ill-designed for women.
- A study in Vienna in the mid-1990s found that boys tended to take over public play areas like basketball courts, crowding out the girls. By dividing large parks into multiple spaces, creating more female-friendly spaces with benches that appealed to girls who wanted to hang out with their friends, and creating alternative play areas such as badminton and volleyball courts for the girls, they were able to create public spaces where girls could feel as comfortable as boys.
- Vienna introduced gender budgeting in 2006 – a study indicates that the city carried out more than 60 initiatives using gender mainstreaming, including street-lighting projects, introducing apartment complexes and social housing designed by and for women, and improving the safety of shortcuts and alleyways by installing mirrors.
Read more here.
