Member Resources
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Things to Read
Includes blogs, articles, reports, literature, and books.
Blogs
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How do women participate in cities? Are they visible in public spaces in your city? Can they actively shape the urban landscape?
By: Laura Puttkamer
Mar 9, 2020
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As I delved deeper into the world of real estate and urban development, I realised that something critical was missing: the voices and experiences of women and other vulnerable groups.
By Safaa Charafi
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Whether intentionally or unintentionally, urban spaces serve the needs of particular gender and roles without providing for the majority of society. Previously, limited understanding of the interrelationships between gender, socio-economic inequities and violence, and the built environment have further exacerbated the inequalities and challenges experienced by women, children, older people and persons with disabilities in fulfilling daily tasks and responsibilities.
Olafiyin Taiwo
March 2023
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In our 40 years of travels around the world, we have taken nearly a million photos of how people live their lives in social places. Each photo tells a story, not only of that one captured moment, but of the broader context of people's lives and the powerful role that social places play in them.
By: Kathy Madden, Madeley Rodriguez, Tayana Panova, Katherine Peinhardt, Fred Kent
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By Wesley Jenkins
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The Sustainable Transport Award (STA) is an honor in the world of sustainable mobility. What lessons do previous winners and nominees hold for empowering women in transport and for transforming the mobility sector towards more gender inclusivity? This article will highlight key ideas for gender-inclusive transport from previous winners, ranging from travel safety, targeted interventions on bus systems, citizen engagement, and gender-disaggregated data.
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Traditional city design and planning often fails to recognise the complex and unequal relations between men and women in our society, says URBANET’s author Ana Falú. While women’s right to the city was largely left unattended until the recent past, it is important to understand that women have always been active participants in the building of cities. Still, many challenges remain. The progress and success of city policies depends on the capacity to ensure equal conditions and opportunities for people of all genders.
By Ana Falú
Read via Urbanet
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It is time to talk honestly about sexism in urban planning.
Women live, transit, walk and use the infrastructure of a city in ways very different from men. In Mexico, women make up fifty-one per cent of the country’s population, yet this majority is not reflected in the country’s decision-making structures. Deeply patriarchal gender roles sustained by a religion told women that their sole mission in life was to get married and to have children, while men should be the economic providers of the family.
Not surprisingly then, if women studied or worked outside the home, they did not choose careers in engineering, architecture or urban development, since these professions were considered “non-feminine”. This lack of women’s perspective influenced the current design of cities, leaving women, their everyday needs and realities, behind.
By Ana Cristina García
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In a world that isn’t designed for our communities to thrive, Pride is about taking up space.
By: Cheryl Gudz, Communications Specialist, Evergreen
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America’s bike infrastructure isn’t meeting women’s needs. With a flood of government funding and surging e-bike popularity, now’s the time to invest.
By Cara Eckholm
Articles
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Upon the release today of her new book Feminist City, Leslie Kern catches up with Metropolis on how cities can be more equitable for all genders.
By: Leilah Stone
July 7, 2020
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Thoughtful, inclusive urban design can make streets safer for women – something that has multiple benefits.
By: Christine Ro
April 11, 2021
Read via BBC
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Basketball courts, skate parks and playgrounds overlook an important demographic: teenage girls. A burgeoning design movement is trying to fix that.
By: Alexandra Lange
May 28, 2021
Read via Bloomberg
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By Carrie N. Baker
Read via Ms Magazine
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How can we design places that meet the needs of all groups and communities? From better lighting to wider pathways, Modus asks the experts how little changes can make a big difference.
By: Karen Day
March 2023
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From woeful public transportation to dimly lighted streets, urban areas consistently fail women. As we rethink the safety of cities, could we rebuild them with women more in mind?
By Leslie Kern
Updated Jun 12, 2020, 10:30am EDT
Read via Vox
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Our public spaces are used by diverse populations. Why does urban design still fail to reflect that?
By Chantaie Allick
Read via The Walrus
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Innovative and agile cities are better placed to solve major global challenges than national governments – in thrall to the momentum of the last century – but the fight must start now, argues Barcelona’s first female mayor
Ada Colau
Read via The Guardian
Reports
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When a country isn’t bike friendly, women are the first to be left behind. Cycling presents a unique opportunity to address a range of economic and practical disadvantages acutely felt by women in society. There is, therefore, an urgent need to make cycling more practical and accessible in Canada – especially for women and girls.
By: Vélo Canada Bikes
October 2018
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Change of Plans raises questions that are not commonly posed, suggests new avenues for thought in city planning, and contributes to the growing literature on sustainability by merging it with a feminist approach.
Women’s Environment and Development Organization (WEDO)
July 2021
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This report on UN Women’s Global Flagship Programme Initiative, Safe Cities and Safe Public Spaces, shares achievements gleaned from various participating city programmes in Africa, Latin America, the Arab States, Asia and the Pacific, North America, and Europe.
United Nations Women
Publication year: 2017
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“Because It’s 2016: Action on Gender Equality” was the Vancouver City Council motion that inspired the development of an updated women’s equity strategy and provided the opportunity to consider our work in light of the persistent issue of women’s inequality in our community. The result is Vancouver: A City for All Women, Women’s Equity Strategy 2018-2028.
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Every municipality is unique, so there are many critical paths to advance equity and inclusion. City for All Women Initiative (CAWI) and its partners believe that when a municipality works for those who are most at risk of exclusion, including women and girls from a diversity of backgrounds, they work for everyone.
June 2015
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To realize the positive intersection of feminism and the 15-minute city, concrete and inclusive land-use and mobility policies are necessary. Take a look at our latest publication by Women Mobilize Women ambassador Melissa Bruntlett.
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In 2010, UN Women launched the “Global Programme on Safe Cities Free of Violence against Women and Girls,” in partnership with UN-Habitat, leading women’s organizations, and global and local partners in five pilot cities across the world, including Delhi. The aim was to prevent sexual violence in public spaces. The Safe City Delhi Programme is a collaborative effort by UN Women, UN Habitat, the Government of Delhi and the Indian non-governmental organization, Jagori. The International Center for Research on Women is the evaluation partner.
Nandita Bhatla, Pranita Achyut, Sancheeta Ghosh, Abhishek Gautam, Ravi Verma
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The historical practices of transportation planning are known to be gender-neutral. Identifying the motives behind women's travel behaviour works to inform equitable data collection methods, transportation planning, and public transit policy. However, systematic gender inclusion procedures, spanning from the hiring of professionals to the design or planning of systems and equipment, are yet to be widely identified or highlighted within the Canadian context.
This knowledge mobilization study, which was carried out in partnership with researchers at the University of Alberta, Polytechnique Montréal and transit planning industry advisors from Leading Mobility Consulting, revealed the majority of riders on public transit are women who tend to travel more often at off-peak times — mid afternoons, evenings and late at night — to trip-chain — making multiple stops on the same trip — and take shorter trips with the purpose of serving others.
The review of policy materials of 18 public transit systems from Canada’s eight largest metropolitan areas showed that many transit agencies are starting to seek a better understanding in how they plan and operate transit service for women.
Policy implications include a deeper investigation of women's travel behaviour; exploring novel avenues for gender-based data collection; and increasing the number of women employed across all levels of the public transit sector.
Literature
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A woman’s experience in the urban environment is entirely distinct from a man’s: from perceptions of fear and safety in public spaces to the unique biometrics of a woman’s stride when carrying a package or pushing a stroller.
By: Jenna Dutton, Chiara Tomaselli, Mrudhula Koshy, Kristin Agnello, Katrina Johnston-Zimmerman, Charlotte Morphet and Karen Horwood
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Cycling is increasingly prioritized as a mode of transport with multiple socio-economic, environmental, and health benefits. However, the benefits associated with cycling are not always equitably distributed throughout society, meaning that some people (e.g. people with low incomes, immigrants and people of colour, women, and seniors) may not have access to safe and convenient spaces in which to cycle, with infrastructure inadequately accommodating the varying needs of all members of society.
Alexandra Doran, Ahmed El-Geneidy, Kevin Manaugh
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This article argues that climate change not only requires major technological solutions, but also has political and socio-economic aspects with implications for development policy and practice. Questions of globalisation, equity, and the distribution of welfare and power underlie many of its manifestations, and its impacts are not only severe, but also unevenly distributed. There are some clear connections, both positive and negative, between gender and the environment. This paper explores these linkages, which help to illustrate the actual and potential relationships between gender and climate change, and the gender-specific implications of climate change. It also provides examples of women organising for change around sustainable development issues in the build-up to the World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD), and demonstrates how women's participation can translate into more gender-sensitive outcomes.
Irene Dankelman
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By Ursula Bauere
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In Feminist theory: from margin to center, feminist theorist bell hooks questioned the existing feminist discourses during her time by pointing out the lack of a solid definition of feminism and the predominance of white, privileged feminists in the movement. Although several other feminist theorists have made the same criticisms, what sets hooks apart is her invitation to a revolutionary feminist outlook, which uses a pluralistic lens to recognize the absence of oppressed groups and the interrogation of cultural representations. Even before “intersectionality” became a buzzword in feminist circles, hooks has already been talking about the interlocking webs of oppression, a concept that most feminists associate with intersectionality. Despite her novel ideas though, most critics raise concerns about her inconsistencies, lack of methodology, and critical awareness. What I aim to do in this paper is to re-evaluate hooks and propose ways to address some of these supposed contradictions. To enrich hooks’ feminist theory, I propose three main points: the emphasis on the crossing of borders, feminist solidarity and global transgression.
Biana, H.T.
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This essay explores the changing shape of Anglo-American feminist urban geography, through a discussion of material published in Gender, Place and Culture and elsewhere over the past decade. We contextualize this discussion in relation to the development of feminist urban studies since the 1970s, showing its enduring commitment to work across traditional analytical divides that obfuscate crucial aspects of the mutual constitution of gender and the urban. Focusing on two thematic areas--affective experiences of urban space, and the making of urban public spaces--we examine how this commitment is expressed in recent contributions to feminist urban geography. Both bodies of work successfully challenge a divide between scholarship that focuses on how cities constrain, disadvantage and oppress women, and scholarship that focuses on how cities liberate women. However, we are disturbed by a seeming bifurcation between work concerned with issues of recognition and work focusing on issues of redistribution, with the former being well represented in Gender, Place and Culture and the latter more likely to be aired in 'mainstream' journals. We conclude by reflecting on our lack of perspective on the trajectories of feminist urban geography outside of the Anglo-American context and ask whether the boundaries within which our review has been conducted are themselves gendered.
Bondi, L & Rose, D.
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Very few theories have generated the kind of interdisciplinary and global engagement that marks the intellectual history of intersectionality. Yet, there has been very little effort to reflect upon precisely how intersectionality has moved across time, disciplines, issues, and geographic and national boundaries. Our failure to attend to intersectionality's movement has limited our ability to see the theory in places in which it is already doing work and to imagine other places to which the theory might be taken. Addressing these questions, this special issue reflects upon the genesis of intersectionality, engages some of the debates about its scope and theoretical capacity, marks some of its disciplinary and global travels, and explores the future trajectory of the theory. To do so, the volume includes academics from across the disciplines and from outside of the United States. Their respective contributions help us to understand how intersectionality has moved and to broaden our sense of where the theory might still go.
Carbado, D., Crenshaw, K., Mays, V., & Tomlinson, B.
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Urban design scholars denounce the recent trend towards the privatization of US public space. Critics emphasize the negative consequences of privatized public space, tied to private ownership, an emphasis on consumption, leisure and security, a targeted audience, and controlled behaviour and design. Yet these key qualities of privatized public spaces have meaning only in the context of one's identity. The same qualities shape experiences of privatized public spaces that can be understood as constrained, as constraining or as a form of resistance, depending on one's gender, race, class and sexuality. This paper challenges the prevailing design critique by examining women's experience of privatized public spaces, drawing on interviews with 43 middle‐class women and behavioural mapping in five privatized public spaces in Orange County, California. Recommendations address changes to research and practice to better reflect and accommodate diverse experiences of public space.
Kristen Day
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The distinction between urban theory and planning theory is not intellectually viable. Reasons include (1) the historical roots and justification for planning, which depends on a vision of the city rather than simply a method of arriving at prescription; (2) the dependence of effective planning on its context, which means that planning activity needs to be rooted in an understanding of the field in which it is operating; and (3) the objective of planning as conscious creation of the just city, which requires a substantive normative framework.
Fainstein, S. S.
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The inclusion of gender views in every field and, especially, in urbanism, has become crucial for urban planning. Considering both men’s and women’s interests in an integrated gender equality perspective provides better results that improve the quality of public spaces and engenders a more sustainable society. However, to realize such benefits, efforts are required not only to understand the needs and preferences of urban residents but also to shape policies and develop strategies to mitigate vulnerability with population involvement. In order to help decision makers at the urban level evaluate vulnerability with the inclusion of gender views, this study proposes a model that incorporates the specificities of urban fabric users that face adverse conditions. The model is based on a structured and standardized checklist of key topics that could be applied to any urban development. From this checklist, a list of categories, subcategories, and indicators were proposed and validated using the inter-judge agreement technique. To illustrate this model, this paper presents the case study of Castellón (Spain) in which deprived neighborhoods were analyzed, updating a previous model intended only to detect vulnerability. The results help link policy making to social vulnerability and indicate strategies to reach inclusive neighborhoods via a gender equality approach.
Patricia Huedo, María José Ruá, Laura Florez-Perez, and Raquel Agost-Felip
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Investigations of the interconnectedness of climate change with human societies require profound analysis of relations among humans and between humans and nature, and the integration of insights from various academic fields. An intersectional approach, developed within critical feminist theory, is advantageous. An intersectional analysis of climate change illuminates how different individuals and groups relate differently to climate change, due to their situatedness in power structures based on context-specific and dynamic social categorisations. Intersectionality sketches out a pathway that stays clear of traps of essentialisation, enabling solidarity and agency across and beyond social categories. It can illustrate how power structures and categorisations may be reinforced, but also challenged and renegotiated, in realities of climate change. We engage with intersectionality as a tool for critical thinking, and provide a set of questions that may serve as sensitisers for intersectional analyses on climate change.
Anna Kaijser and Annica Kronsell
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Given that women are engaged in more climaterelated change activities than what is recognized and valued in the community, this article highlights their important role in the adaptation and search for safer communities, which leads them to understand better the causes and consequences of changes in climatic conditions. It is concluded that women have important knowledge and skills for orienting the adaptation processes, a product of their roles in society (productive, reproductive and community); and the importance of gender equity in these processes is recognized. The relationship among climate change, climate variability and the accomplishment of the Millennium Development Goals is considered.
Y. Carvajal-Escobar, M. Quintero-Angel, and M. Garcıa-Vargas
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Ever since ‘gender mainstreaming’ was embraced by the Treaty of Amsterdam in 1999, European Union institutions and member states have made significant advances in the development of policies , legislation and government structures dealing with equality between women and men, in many areas of public life. Previous efforts at introducing considerations of gender equality – at the time, usually defined as ‘women’s issues’ - into planning agenda were somewhat scarce although a few had significant impacts and visibility, for example, in the UK, Holland, Scandinavia and Vienna.
Berglund, E & Wallace, B.
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This paper considers the influence of ecofeminism on policy concerning gender (in)equality and the environment during the past 20 years. It reviews the broad contours of the ecofeminist debate before focusing on the social construction interpretation of women's relationship with the environment. It will argue that there have been substantial policy shifts in Europe and the UK in both the environmental and equalities fields, and that this is in part a result of lobbying at a range of scales by groups informed by ecofeminist debates. Nevertheless, the paper cautions that these shifts are largely incremental and operate within existing structures, which inevitably limit their capacity to create change. As policy addresses some of the concerns highlighted by ecofeminism, academic discourse and grass roots activity have been moving on to address other issues, and the paper concludes with a brief consideration of contemporary trajectories of ecofeminism and campaigning on issues that link women's, feminist and environment concerns.
Buckingham, S.
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Tools from the study of neighborhood effects, place distinction, and regional identity are employed in an ethnography of four small cities with growing populations of lesbian, bisexual, and queer-identified (LBQ) women to explain why orientations to sexual identity are relatively constant within each site, despite informants’ within-city demographic heterogeneity, but vary substantially across the sites, despite common place-based attributes. The author introduces the concept of “sexual identity cultures”—and reveals the defining role of cities in shaping their contours. She finds that LBQ numbers and acceptance, place narratives, and newcomers’ encounters with local social attributes serve as touchstones. The article looks beyond major categorical differences (e.g., urban/rural) to understand how and why identities evolve and vary and to reveal the fundamental interplay of demographic, cultural, and other city features previously thought isolatable. The findings challenge notions of identity as fixed and emphasize the degree to which self-understanding and group understanding remain collective accomplishments.
Brown-Saracino, J.
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Carmon, N., Fainstein, S.S.
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De Madariaga, I. S., & Neuman, M.
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Dolores Hayden
Briefs
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This policy brief provides an overview of the BOLD Policy Project, an initiative led by Jay Pitter Placemaking, which is intended to examine and transform the invisible, yet powerful, forces of urban policy using a place-based, racial equity lens focused on Black people. It unpacks 10+ case studies, which integrate Black public space stories and urban policies to create a foundational understanding of the issue across historical time periods, geographies and violations. The conclusion presents high-level themes, illuminates BOLD Policy Project core questions evoked by the case studies and issues a call to action for establishing the conditions for structural change
Authored by Jay Pitter
February 2023
November 12, 2019
Books
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Feminist City is an ongoing experiment in living differently, living better, and living more justly in an urban world.
By: Leslie Kern
November 12, 2019
Between the Lines
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Change of Plans raises questions that are not commonly posed, suggests new avenues for thought in city planning, and contributes to the growing literature on sustainability by merging it with a feminist approach.
Edited by: Margrit Eichler
Copyright Date: 1995
Published by: University of Toronto Press
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Data is fundamental to the modern world. From economic development, to healthcare, to education and public policy, we rely on numbers to allocate resources and make crucial decisions. But because so much data fails to take into account gender, because it treats men as the default and women as atypical, bias and discrimination are baked into our systems. And women pay tremendous costs for this bias, in time, money, and often with their lives.
By: Caroline Criado Pérez
March 12, 2019 by Abrams Press
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Engendering Cities examines the contemporary research, policy, and practice of designing for gender in urban spaces. Gender matters in city design, yet despite legislative mandates across the globe to provide equal access to services for men and women alike, these issues are still often overlooked or inadequately addressed. This book looks at critical aspects of contemporary cities regarding gender, including topics such as transport, housing, public health, education, caring, infrastructure, as well as issues which are rarely addressed in planning, design, and policy, such as the importance of toilets for education and clothes washers for freeing-up time. In the first section, a number of chapters in the book assess past, current, and projected conditions in cities vis-à-vis gender issues and needs. In the second section, the book assesses existing policy, planning, and design efforts to improve women’s and men’s concerns in urban living. Finally, the book proposes changes to existing policies and practices in urban planning and design, including its thinking (theory) and norms (ethics).
Edited By Inés Sánchez de Madariaga, Michael Neuman
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This book walks us through the history of a woman's place in the city as a flâneuse - a counter-imagination to the privilege of the masculine body that can wander and blend into the life of the streets without any trouble. She explores the fraught relationship between women and the urban environment, through literature, art, history and film.
Written by Lauren Elkin.
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"A still challenge to the great macho myths of metropolitan architecture." Here, seven female architects discuss how sexual assumptions about family life and the role of women have been built into the design of our home and cities.
January 1, 1984
Pluto Press
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Living on the Land examines how patriarchy, gender, and colonialism have shaped the experiences of Indigenous women as both knowers and producers of knowledge. From a variety of methodological perspectives, contributors to the volume explore the nature and scope of Indigenous women’s knowledge, its rootedness in relationships both human and spiritual, and its inseparability from land and landscape.
Edited by: Nathalie Kermoal and Isabel Altamirano-Jiménez
July 2016
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Presenting an original take on women's safety in the cities of twenty-first century India, Why Loiter? maps the exclusions and negotiations that women from different classes and communities encounter in the nation's urban public spaces.
By: Sameera Khan, SANKAR, Shilpa Phadke, Shilpa Ranade
Imprint: India Viking
Published: Nov/2010
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This new book written by Nourhan Bassam explores how cities have been designed to reinforce traditional gender roles, limiting the access of women, girls, and other marginalized groups to the public sphere.
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Rooted in feminist political thought,She Cityilluminates how gender shapes our urban spaces and city design. Through three sections: 'Resisting Sexist Cities', 'Designing Feminist Cities', and 'Prioritizing Safer Cities', Kalms examines barriers to women's public participation and focuses on the practical strategies, policies and actions to overcome them. Addressing significant themes such as violence against women and gender-sensitive design,She Citynot only provides direction for practitioners but also inspires confidence to pursue new paths towards women-centered urban environments. This book is an essential resource for architects, urban designers, planners and the plethora of built environment specialists committed to building cities that truly meet the diverse needs of women and girls.
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Things to Listen to
Includes radio and podcasts.
Radio
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“When we make improvements … we're really lifting things up for a much wider range of people,” Leslie Kern
This episode is from the Carleton University online Forum Lecture, "Towards a Feminist Post-COVID City" given by Leslie Kern in February 2021.
CBC Radio · Posted: Mar 16, 2021
Podcasts
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In this podcast, we invite people who are dedicating their lives to gender equality, sustainability, politics in our cities around the world. We include a wide range of urban professionals from activists and planners to policymakers. We hope these stories will inspire you to look at public spaces differently.
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Exploring how women of color in navigate city life, from dating, transportation, career, safety, housing, and so much more.
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In City of Women, we explore the calculated strategies, backdoor negotiations, and often absurd lengths women go to have fun and feel free in their city.
Every Indian woman knows that being out in the city comes with rules - rules that determine who gets to be where and what you can and can’t do. But this
show is not about those rules. It’s about how they get broken, bent, and jumped over when women decide to do things just for themselves.
City of Women is fun, complex, and a bit of a joyride into the minds of women and the streets of Bangalore.
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Urban Systems' Consultants, Jenn and Katie, speak with fellow Urbanites about the creative ways our practice areas collaborate to better serve vibrant communities.
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Stories about how we make cities for people. Tune in and join listeners from 140 countries.
I am Mustafa Sherif (Urban Planner based in Sweden). In this podcast, we don't only talk about making cities, but also about city makers' life careers, journeys, leadership, and hobbies ...
In collaboration with AFRY (Urban Planning and Design Section)
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The podcast, sponsored by the University of Toronto, explores various initiatives happening across the African continent (and diaspora), featuring monthly interviews with various guests.
Podcast Episodes
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If you think there is no link between architecture and feminism, think about the omnipresent queues to the female restrooms. Which design decisions result in gender inequality and how can architecture contribute to creating equality and inclusivity for every gender?
I am brainstorming on these topics with my guest Nourhan Bassam - author of the book “The gendered city“, a researcher, feminist urbanist and a founder of a Think Tank Gaming X.
Join the brainstorm!
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In this episode by the Alright, Now What? Podcast hosted by Andrea Gunraj, Leslie Woo CRE, CEO of CivicAction talks about the power of holistic collaboration with community members at the frontlines and not just developers or builders so that visible as well as invisible symptoms of the housing crisis in Canada can be addressed. She also shares the importance of gender equality in urban development and opportunities for women in the industry.
Listen
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Chatting with academics about their research on cities. Co-Hosts: Dr. Rebecca Mayers and Isaac Keast 2021 American Planning Association Transportation Planning Division Small grant award winner Buy Merchandise: https://densecitypod.myshopify.com/ Artwork by Emily Huang: https://emilyhillustrations.com/ Music by Reid Cai, Ryan Kinneer, and Becca Mayers
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All Bodies on Bikes is a movement to create and foster a size-inclusive bike community. Join Marley and Maggie as they explore the ideas surrounding “All Bodies On Bikes” and the impact this movement has on communities. We will explore themes such as party pace and why Marley hates it, the limitations of equipment, finding clothing and cycling tools, group ride dynamics as a larger-bodied person, the impact that “All Bodies On Bikes” has had and can have on the cycling industry as a whole.
Our podcast will feature stories and interviews with folks within the industry from big names in racing all the way to community members that love biking around town.
Join us as we explore the complexities of the bike world. Break down barriers and help us create the world we want to see!
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2 Urban Planners giving you the tools you need to navigate public spaces.
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Talking Volumes is a podcast that seeks to understand how space impacts our lives, in both subtle and significant ways.
We wish to understand the political, historical, environmental, and social contexts that form around built spaces: how the physical elements of walls, floors, and ornament collide with the conversations, connections, and emotions that happen within them to create our experience of buildings and built forms.
We want to extend dialogue about architecture beyond the exclusive space of the Architect. We hope this will develop into a platform to connect with other thinkers and designers; and form new ideas about how spaces can be better used to face the social, environmental, and political challenges of the 21st Century, at both the macro and micro scales.
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Each week we sit down with today’s most relevant urban thinkers to discuss the forces and trends molding our modern cities. From planning, policy, and design, to nomad cities, AI and automation, health and wellbeing, architecture, housing and beyond, we cover urbanity from all angles. Shaping better cities for all, one episode at a time.
Brought to you by NewCities.
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Alright, Now What? puts an intersectional feminist lens on stories that make you wonder “Why is this still happening?” Through expert interviews, we explore systemic roots and strategies for change that will move us closer to the goal of gender justice.
Hosted by Andrea Gunraj of the Canadian Women’s Foundation.
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Things to Watch
Includes videos, presentations, and documentaries.
Videos
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Parts of modern Barcelona show what a city designed by women, rather than men, might look like.
NewsChannel
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Did you know that women are more risk-averse than men, and that more women than men identify traffic safety as a challenge to cycling? This concern has an impact on their bicycle use and was highlighted in the study "Gender and Smart Mobility" published by Ramboll (global architecture, engineering and consultancy company) in March 2021. In this video, UMX travelled to Copenhagen (Denmark) to talk to Marianne Weinreich (Market Manager Smart Mobility at Ramboll, Chair and co-founder of the Cycling Embassy of Denmark) and discover how to make urban cycling more attractive to women.
Urban Mobility Explained
Presentations
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Vania Ceccato has spent more than 20 years researching the relation between urban planning and safety. In this talk she outlines the basics behind her ideas, and suggests some concrete solutions that can be put to use to make our future cities safer not only for women, but for all of us.
TEDxKTHWomen
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In ‘The Feminist City’, Dr Ellie Cosgrave uses urban planning to disrupt our thinking about how designing decisions impact different groups based on categories of identity. By weaving in personal experiences and supplementing them with the industrial realities of civil engineering, Ellie shows us how we can recreate the city to enable diverse peoples and bodies to get the very most of the places we live. Through centralising feminist and social justice ideas, Ellie explores how we can fundamentally transform our cities to ensure that no one is excluded from public spaces, or from the resources and opportunities cities have to offer.
TW: mentions of sexual assault
TEDxUCLWomen
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Cities are gendered. While gender identity can be fluid, on average women experience the city differently than men. Women are more likely to experience urban poverty, head single parent households, care for relatives, absorb the bulk of household chores and childcare, walk and take transit, have more complex travel behavior, report urban safety concerns and experience sexual harassment and assault in the public realm. Yet these gendered realities are rarely considered in the way we design our cities. Women’s achievements are also less visible in our public spaces, including in the way we name our streets and design our monuments. Likewise, women are vastly under-represented in urban decision making and around leadership tables in local government and urban design professions. Come examine who gets to be protagonists in the city-building process and how gender awareness is fundamental to the equity and success of 21st century cities.
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University of Calgary welcomed Sara Candiracci, an Associate Director in Arup’s Cities, Planning and Design team, to discuss the importance of gender responsive planning in urban centres.
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Marina Moscoso from Despacio speaks on how transport planning is designed without the lens of intersectionality and how that effects certain groups over others.
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This webinar, hosted by Austroads and presented by Estelle Grech, Churchill Fellowship Recipient, reflects on how safety is often seen as a benchmark for inclusive cities for women and girls when it should be the baseline. Grech shares insights from 14 cities she has travelled to around the globe to conduct her research on urban mobility issues for women and girls.
Documentaries
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When urban renewal became synonymous with the destruction of historic neighborhoods, writer and urban planning advocate Jane Jacobs battled some of New York's most powerful people to save communities like Greenwich Village and Little Italy. She later fought a similar fight in Toronto.
TVO Today Docs
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MOTHERLOAD is a crowdsourced documentary in which the cargo bicycle becomes a vehicle for exploring parenthood in this digital age of climate change. As Marin filmmaker and new mother Liz Canning meets the people behind the push to replace cars with purpose-built bikes, she contemplates the increasing tension between modern life and our hunter-gatherer DNA, and discovers the history and potential future of the bicycle as the “ultimate social revolutionizer.” Conflict arises when characters in the film encounter cultural resistance—in particular, bikelash focused on women and mothers. MOTHERLOAD draws connections here to the struggle of cyclist Suffragettes and women's seemingly endless fight for bodily autonomy.
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Things to do
Includes toolkits and courses.
Toolkits
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Urban infrastructure and public spaces should be planned and managed by taking into account women’s needs, priorities and inputs. A strong participatory and inclusive approach to urban planning is necessary to increase women’s contribution to infrastructure and city development and foster gender awareness and competence amongst planners, designers, and engineers.
Cities Alliance
First published in 2022
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The aim of the tool is to collect data from people and their environment through observation. It is an effort to analyze and diagnose what factors facilitate care activities in public space.
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Cities Alliance is launching the new Toolkit for Women-Friendly Urban Planning from Cities of the Global South. The Toolkit will provide local governments, civil society organizations, and urban practitioners with the tools and knowledge to incorporate women's and girls' needs and voices in urban planning.
Courses
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The content of this course focuses on the basic introduction to gender-based analysis (GBA) Plus. You will familiarize yourself with the key concepts of GBA Plus and recognize how various identity and social factors can influence the experience of federal government initiatives affecting different people. You will learn to identify how GBA Plus can enhance the responsiveness, effectiveness and outcomes of federal government initiatives while applying some foundational GBA Plus concepts and processes.
Government of Canada
The course was updated April 11, 2022
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This course will educate users on the benefits of gender equality and why it matters.
This course is composed of four modules:
Introduction – Understanding Gender & Gender Norms
The Global Cost of Gender Inequality
The Benefits of Gender Equality
Call to Action – how can we each play a role in creating inclusive cultures and working towards gender equality?
Course by HeForShe & PwC
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Gender inequality is a key challenge in society. Explore its causes and consequences and consider the ways you can overcome it.
University of Exeter
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Discover expert governance strategies for preparing urban areas to face the challenges posed by climate change.
University of Groningen and Global Center on Adaptation
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Become an Expert in Gender-Based Analysis. Apply inclusive analytic techniques and human-centred design to generate innovative products, services, processes and policies using intersectional gender-based insights.
University of Toronto
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In this course you will learn:
How gender in transportation fits within the broader development context
Who can benefit from greater gender equality in transportation?
How transport systems can enhance the mobility of women and girls
How women can be better engaged in the transport sector
Future challenges and opportunities in gender and transportation
UN Women Training Centre
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The course provides an understanding of violence against women and girls, its extent, drivers and impact. It also provides evidence-based guidance for policy-makers and stakeholders in complementary fields to better understand the key pillars for preventing it and responding to it when it occurs.
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Engage her, give her a voice, and the opportunity to influence her environment.
Involving girls in urban development will make the city better for everyone. Girls plan and design with diversity and different needs in mind. Participatory processes are key for planning a city that works for everyone. If we let citizens that are rarely heard be the experts, our cities and communities will become more inclusive, equal and sustainable.
The purpose of the Her City initiative is to make methods and tools available to urban actors and cities globally. We support cities to scale up and mainstream girls’ participation in planning as a part of their long-term strategies to build sustainable cities and societies.
Her City supports urban development from a girl’s perspective. We guide urban actors to implement projects through a step-by-step methodology providing an open and digitally accessible platform for all. We facilitate an ongoing dialogue between professionals and citizens.
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This online course by TUMI explores issues of gender and mobility, and presents how gender-sensitive planning could make the transport sector more inclusive.
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This track discusses the role of women in cities and explores the meaning of feminist city planning, the current state of urban planning as it relates to gender equity, and what a feminist city could look like. Join course instructor Katrina Johnston-Zimmerman, lecturer and researcher, to learn the meaning of "feminist city planning" and how we can envision a more heart-centered city that works for everyone. Each course in this track is approved for AIA CES and AICP CM credit.
Planetizen Courses
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Gain valuable insights into microclimate effects on urban planning, and learn to design successful tourist and residential areas.
Luleå University of Technology
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Discover the different dimensions of sustainable urban mobility, including the Avoid-Shift-Improve (ASI) framework.
From planning experts at the University College London (UCL) Bartlett School of Planning and the Transformative Urban Mobility Initiative (TUMI)
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Understand how places, urban mobility and health impact each other, and use your knowledge to design sustainable cities.
RMIT University and EIT Urban Mobility
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Indigenous Canada is a 12-lesson Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) from the Faculty of Native Studies that explores the different histories and contemporary perspectives of Indigenous peoples living in Canada. From an Indigenous perspective, this course explores complex experiences Indigenous peoples face today from a historical and critical perspective highlighting national and local Indigenous-settler relations.
University of Alberta
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Boost your knowledge, understanding and skills for navigating urban transformations and creating sustainable cities and communities in countries across the world.
Lund University
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This online course from Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI) Asia Centre equips you with a set of multimedia and learning tools to better understand gender in environment and sustainable development.
Do you have resources that you think would be beneficial to other Women in Urbanism Canada Members?
Please send them our way!