Author and urban researcher
INCLUSIVE URBAN SPACES. KEY PRINCIPLES OF FEMINIST URBAN PLANNING.
Feminist urban planning is a set of values, practices, and principles that aim to address the long-standing exclusion of women and other marginalized groups from planning processes and urban infrastructure. In recent decades, many cities have begun to formally incorporate feminist planning into their policies; Glasgow and Nantes are two notable examples. However, there is still a long way to go before cities become truly justified and comprehensive.
THE LIMITS OF THE MODERN CITY
Despite the promise of greater independence, professional opportunities, and freedom, there have been barriers to women’s efforts to become full and equal participants in the social, economic, and political life of cities. By almost every measure, women have been systematically disadvantaged by urban planning and politics, compounded by gender norms that circumscribe women’s activities in the public sphere. From the fear of male violence to the lack of infrastructure to share the burden of care work, women have been faced with challenges that impact their everyday lives as well as their long-term well-being.
A LEGACY OF FEMINIST RESISTANCE
Women have never been passive in the face of these challenges, however. Architect and urban scholar Dolores Hayden uncovered proto-feminist plans from as early as the 19th century to transform homes, neighbourhoods, and cities in ways that would free women from domestic burdens and create collective spaces for care work.¹ Hayden herself advocated for a vision of the “non-sexist city” in the 1980s, as did the UK’s Matrix Collective with their 1984 book Making Space: Women and the Man Made Environment. From this work and decades of further research, feminist planning emerged as a strong force dedicated to making cities more justified, sustainable, and caring.
TEN PRINCIPLES FOR FEMINIST URBAN PLANNING
In my own work as a feminist urban geographer who wrote the book Feminist City, I have come to believe in ten principles of feminist ur- ban planning. These are based on feminist values of teamwork, care, justice, intersectionality, respect for difference, and relationality.
01 DIVERSE LEADERS MAKE A DIFFERENCE
Women and others from excluded groups must be “at the table” for decision making. After all, you cannot solve problems that you do not even know exist. Cities that have had women mayors and elected officials, such as Paris, Barcelona, Glasgow, and Nantes have been at the forefront of urban planning initiatives that aim to end sexism in the city. Glasgow councillor Holly Bruce successfully proposed a feminist town planning policy, and deputy mayor Mahaut Behru is leading efforts for Nantes to become the first non-sexist city in France.
02 WOMEN ARE EXPERTS ON THEIR OWN LIVES
Historically, the voices of women and others with less power have not been listened to in urban planning. Any planning project must include time for deeply engaged participation from community members. This entails using creative, feminist methods for reaching people who are often overlooked in planning processes, including newcomers, disabled people, older people, and young people. In 2022, Vienna surveyed 15,000 women and learned that time, space, and opportunity were of critical importance. Los Angeles’ public transportation system (LA Metro) commissioned large research reports to understand the mobility challenges faced by girls and women, which led to the development of a Gender Action Plan.
03 EVERYONE CAN BE A PLANNER
Women and girls often feel unwelcome in urban public spaces, partly because they have rarely given concrete input into the design process. While planners and architects have the necessary technical expertise, community members can offer valuable guidance from conception to construction. The UK organization Make Space for Girls involves girls, who are often overlooked as public space users, in park design to create spaces that are safe, fun, and active. Successful projects include Brickfields Park in Bath, England, where girls had input into the design of spaces for social activity.
04 FEMINIST PLANNING IS INTERSECTIONAL
Feminism recognizes that women are diverse and that intersecting identities such as race, class, sexuality, age, religion, ability, and more impact how women live, move, and feel in cities. Thus, feminist urban planning must listen to the voices of women from all backgrounds before deciding that a project meets women’s needs. Black women urban scholars have argued, for example, that increased policing and surveillance in cities is harmful to Black women and their communities, and should not be promoted as a feminist safety intervention.²
05 SEXISM CANNOT BE DESIGNED OUT
The meaning and experience of a place, such as a public plaza or park, depends as much on how it is used and by whom as it does on its physical form. Therefore planning processes need to include an understanding of the social and cultural environment. Typically, women find public spaces more useable and safe when there are different groups of people present, as well as mixed uses. Inclusive zoning is one tool cities can use to avoid a problematic separation of land uses and ensure that a variety of activities can occur throughout the day and evening in urban public spaces.
06 SAFETY IS ABOUT MORE THAN LIGHTING
Fear and danger often limit women’s use of urban spaces. Feminist urban planning asks for a more nuanced, intersectional, and contextual approach than simply adding lighting or CCTV cameras. Planners can involve women in safety planning through methods such as Safety Audits, developed in cities such as Toronto in the 1980s, in which community members walk in groups through areas that do not feel safe and offer a range of ideas for improvement, including landscape design, mixed uses, traffic calming measures, and more. Dublin has experimented with a central “safe zone” near the city’s nightlife. Between 20:00 and 03:00, a person can go to this zone for support and receive assistance to get home.
07 BODIES MATTER
The modernist and car-focused planning that came to dominate many urban environments in the 20th century was not human-centered, as the critic Jane Jacobs argued in her 1961 classic The Death and Life of Great American Cities. During the pandemic, as we were instructed to socialize outside, many people found that their cities had few places to sit, gather, to find shade or water, or to use the bathroom. A feminist approach insists that cities are for people, and that people have bodies with a range of needs. If planning starts from the body and our universal needs as living organisms, we can create more welcoming, vibrant, safe, and inclusive spaces. During the pandemic, as we were instructed to socialize outside, many people found that their cities had few places to sit, gather, to find shade or water, or to use the bathroom. A feminist approach insists that cities are for people, and that people have bodies with a range of needs. If planning starts from the body and our universal needs as living organisms, we can create more welcoming, vibrant, safe, and inclusive spaces.
08 MOVE THE MARGIN TO THE CENTRE
Feminist urban planning argues that women’s needs are not exceptional. In fact, if we take women as well as other often-excluded groups, we are the majority of the population. Mainstream planning processes that see women and others as ‚special interest groups‘ whose needs ‚take away‘ from the majority are misguided and wrong. Furthermore, if we plan from the perspective of those who have been most excluded, we are more likely to create spaces that are accessible and inclusive for all. In her book Design Justice: Community Led Practices to Build the Worlds We Need, Sasha Costanza-Chock argues that design can be led by marginalized communities and can explicitly challenge, rather than reproduce, structural inequalities.
09 CENTRE CARE WORK
Women’s everyday lives in the city are largely shaped by a mix of paid work and unpaid caregiving responsibilities. Women still perform an unfair share of care work and our cities often make this work more challenging by separating cities into single use zones. This adds a large time and travel burden to women’s already complicated days. In Bogotá, the district care system is a recent intervention that deliberately places sites of care – everything from child care and schools to health care to communal kitchens and laundries to education programs for adults – in a walkable or transit-accessible block. This form of planning is meant to take care work out of the home and to give women back more time that can be used for education, training, work, and leisure.
10 SUSTAINABILITY AND EQUITY ARE NOT IN COMPETITION
As cities seek more environmentally-friendly design, including active transport infrastructure, they must integrate equity goals with sustainability goals. Bike lanes, for example, may not feel safe or accessible to all depending on their design. Caregivers may find it difficult to use bikes and scooters while travelling with babies and children. In Amsterdam, a famously bike friendly city, the Urban Cycling Institute is addressing barriers such as cost, physical accessibility, and a lack of participation of marginalized groups in decisions about cycling infrastructure in order to promote more equity in the city’s commitment to sustainability.
In conclusion, feminist urban planning is oriented toward helping planners and policy makers serve more people, better. It recognizes past disadvantages, and works to undo histories of discrimination. Feminist design seeks to enhance the opportunities for women and other marginalized groups to experience independence, safety, economic success, pleasure, and justice in the city.
Biography
Leslie Kern, PhD, is an urban geographer and the author of three books about cities, including Gentrification Is Inevitable and Other Lies and Feminist City: Claiming Space in a Man Made World. Until 2024, she was Associate Professor of Geography and Environment and Women’s and Gender Studies at Mount Allison University in Sackville, Canada. Her research and writing focus on feminist urban theory, housing justice, and equitable city-making.
¹Hayden, Dolores: The Grand Domestic Revolution: A History of Feminist Designs for American Homes, Neighborhoods, and Cities, Cambridge: The MIT Press, 1982.
²Richie, Beth E., Arrested Justice: Black Women, Violence, and America’s Prison Nation, New York: New York University Press, 2012.