Girls Just Want to Have FUNctioning Cities

Women in cities from all over the world have a lot in common that goes beyond their gender identity. They live, commute, work, and exist in a space that was not designed for them. Today we are going to look at how a city’s built environment has failed women, how environmentalism applies to women in cities, and what needs to be done in order to enable women to be full participants in city life.

Who Was the Built Environment Built For? Not 50% of the population.

The built environment in cities (like the accessibility of public space, house zoning, and transportation systems) marginalizes women and jeopardizes their safety. One reasons for this is because women use cities differently from men, while current systems were solely designed based on men’s needs, disregarding the safety and functionality features needed for women. Looking into American Planning Association and Cornell University’s Women’s Planning Forum[i]: women have higher poverty rates and different housing needs, are still “responsible for the majority of housework and childcare” and “have unique travel behavior related to their combination of work and household responsibilities.” Balancing this unpaid care work with employment reduces women’s earnings outside of the home, and the high costs and lack of access to childcare further marginalize women financially[ii]. Juggling multiple responsibilities, women need their built environment to include affordable housing, accessible transportation, and support services within a community. Instead, they are given poorly maintained sidewalks and stairs that they have to navigate with a stroller, unsafe and poorly lit bus and train stops, food deserts, inaccessible greenspace, street harassment, and so on.

This state of being ostracized comes as no surprise when we take a closer look at the demographic of city planners and designers. In Australia, for example, among the Planning Institute of Australia members, only 38% are female, and this number is even lower when it comes to close professions like architects and land economics[iii]. Policy is also being created with a lack of women representation in politics, a trend that is consistent worldwide. For example, in the United States, less than 20% of cities with over 30k residents have a female mayor[iv]. That number decreases even more when looking into statistics for women of color. Wendy Lewis Jackson, a director for the Kresge Foundation’s Detroit Program, summarized it best when she said, “We play really critical and central roles in developing our city’s future but we don’t always have an equitable role, and in fact we often don’t have a seat at the table where decisions are being made”[v].

Women’s underrepresentation in city planning has trickled down to lackluster policies and built environments that do not serve the needs of 50% of our population. As a result, women in cities are disproportionally exposed to financial hardships, and safety concerns as they attempt to navigate a city created by and for men.

Environmentalism and the City –Where Dichotomies Collide

Our natural environment and our urban environments are connected in many ways that are not always easily distinguished. For example, one of the biggest challenges that modern day environmentalism focuses on is climate change. A big driver of climate change is population growth. The world's population has been set to reach 10 billion by the end of the 21st century, which will put a bigger strain on resources like water supplies, food, and energy. Our society will need almost 40% more food, 40% more water and 50% more energy. This population growth coupled with consumption and waste will have large effects on ecosystems and communities.[vi] With an increase of population, there is an increase of emissions and pollution – some of the biggest contributing factors of climate change.

Population growth is directly influenced by woman’s education and quality of life. Women who have access to education and healthcare have increased awareness and accessibility to family planning.[vii] Additionally, education also leads to better health and income of women, giving an emphasis on social and economic opportunity, besides family size. While education shouldn’t be seen as a way to “control population sizes”, it is important to recognize that the more opportunities available to women, the more they can take control of their family planning narrative, rather than having to expand their family as a means of survival.

Women are also disproportionally more vulnerable than men in cases of environmental issues. On average, natural disasters kill more women than men – the stronger the disaster, the stronger the impact on gender gap in life expectancy. While this inequity can be attributed to many possible and interrelated causes, the fact that this effect is most pronounced where women have lower socioeconomic status and power leads experts to believe that the causes are more cultural than biological or physiological.[viii] Cities are especially impacted by natural disasters, such as hurricanes, which have been accentuated in numbers as climate change has worsened. Looking at the US eastern coast alone, our cities, like New Orleans, Miami, New York City, are not as equipped for hurricanes as they need to be in order to keep populations safe.

Women and children are also more susceptible to contaminates from cities than men. Looking at an area like to Gowanus Canal, women and children often walk along the canal and have a higher chance of being exposed to the water or sediment, which in this case is festered with harmful contaminates. Also, due to women and children being smaller in size, the same amount of contaminant could potentially harm them more than men. Women are more susceptible to the negative effects of air pollution than men, due to biological and structural factors – like having smaller body mass, or having to fit more traditional gender roles and cultural norms, which usually mean that women are responsible for cooking, fetching water and cleaning, due to which they end up right next to pollution sources. Cities have worse air quality than the areas surrounding them, with women who reside in these cities having disproportionally carry the burden of this environmental issue.[ix]

Environmental issues are directly related to women in city’s quality of life. While we barely brushed the surface of the many environmental inequalities women face, in order to advance environmental justice for women in cities, this topic needs to be studied in its entirety.

Women’s Resilience Has Been Key to Human Survival, BUT It Shouldn’t Have to Be

Saying women have been resilient to the endless systematic challenges society has thrown their way is an understatement –if they were unable to overcome adversity, humankind would not have progressed to where it is today.

From conversations I've had with industry experts, like Christos Tsiamis (EPA) and Dr. Malo Hutson (Urban Community and Health Equity Lab), it has become apparent that when there is a problem, women are the first to mobilize and help. Christos noticed this with his work as the head EPA engineer at the Gowanus Canal. When he spoke with community members and noted a challenge he was facing in the process, women from the community were the first to go out of their way and find a solution, whether that was helping him get a permit or local support. Malo noticed from his work in disaster recovery in Chile, that after the fire, women were the majority of the first respondents to try and help victims. He also noticed during the rebuild that women were at the front lines pushing government action, sometimes at the expense of their own jobs. Attending meetings often conflicted with their work, resulting in termination.

One step that can get us closer to achieving optimal functionality is having organizations, such as CBPR and WE ACT, that “seek to build capacity and resources in communities and ensure that government agencies and academic institutions are better able to understand and incorporate community concerns into their research agendas”, as explained by Peggy Shepard.[x] This can specifically help with the advancement of environmental health policy and improve the quality of life in women in cities.

Additionally, it is vital women are represented equally (so 50%) in city planning, building, and politics worldwide. The policy blindness around gender (and minority women) is appalling. In many photos of political and business meetings, like the ones Malo experienced during his project in Chile, there are large tables filled with men who are making policies and plans that will greatly affect women, and not a single women or minority women is anywhere to give input. And as we saw with Malo’s case, when women do give input, they are ignored or branded as troublemakers. Having women taking the lead in these projects will transform cities to be much more functioning.

Improved cities not only broaden women’s economic and social opportunities, but also play an important role in curbing urban and environmental challenges. Usually when cities are improved in such ways, everyone benefits –not just women. Thus, in order to enable women to be full participants in their city lives, organizations and representation need to greatly improve.

Works Cited

[i] Micklow, A., AICP, Kancilia, E., & Warner, M., PhD. (november 2015). The Need to Plan for Women. Department of City & Regional Planning, Cornell University.

[ii] Warner, M.E. (2007). Planning for inclusion: The case of childcare. Practicing Planner, 5(1) March 2007. http://cms.mildredwarner.org/p/96

[iii] Sexism and the city: how urban planning has failed women. Dorina Pojani Senior Lecturer in Urban Planning, Dorothy Wardale Director, & Kerry Brown Professor of Employment and Industry https://theconversation.com/sexism-and-the-city-how-urban-planning-has-failed-women-93854

[iv] Women Mayors in U.S. Cities 2016. https://cawp.rutgers.edu/levels_of_office/women-mayors-us-cities-2016

[v] Cities Aren't Designed for Women. Here's Why They Should Be. Abbey-Lambertz https://www.huffpost.com/entry/cities-designed-for-women_n_571a0cdfe4b0d0042da8d264

[vi] "Prosperity and education key in population control". Australian Nursing Journal: 16. November 2012.

[vii] Jonsson-Arora, Seema (May 2011). "Virtue and vulnerability: Discourses on women, gender and climate change". Global Environmental Change. 21 (2): 744–751. doi:10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2011.01.005.

[viii] Women More Vulnerable Than Men to Climate Change https://www.prb.org/women-vulnerable-climate-change/#:~:text=Early%20Childbearing%2C%20High%20Fertility%20Exacerbate,gender%20gap%20in%20life%20expectancy.

[ix] Air Quality in Urban Areas in the US https://oransi.com/blogs/blog/air-quality-urban-areas-us#:~:text=A%20report%20from%20the%20CDC,more%20concentrated%20in%20the%20cities.

[x] Shepard, P. M., Northridge, M. E., Prakash, S., & Stover, G. (2002, April). Preface: Advancing Environmental Justice through Community-Based Participatory Research. Volume 110. Page 139-140. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1241155/pdf/ehp110s-000139.pdf