Fair Shared Cities: The Impact of Gender Planning in Europe

by Marion Roberts

Bringing together a diverse team of leading scholars and professionals, this book offers a variety of insights into ongoing gender mainstreaming policies in Europe with a focus on urban/spatial planning. Gender mainstreaming was first legislated for in the European Union with the Treaty of Amsterdam in 1999 and, although many interesting developments have occurred throughout the decade that followed, there is still much to do in terms of policy, knowledge production, dissemination and education. This work contributes to all three objectives, by advancing the state of knowledge, as well as providing educational and professional tools in the field of gender sensitive planning in Europe. The volume begins by explaining the concept of gender mainstreaming in relation to its origins in the 'second wave' of the women's movement and critiques of planning, architecture, transport planning and other built environment disciplines. It then provides a brief history of how gender mainstreaming was incorporated into European law, before focussing on the theoretical issues and questions that surround the concept of gender mainstreaming as they relate to urban space and the planning of cities and regions, including a discussion of the persistence of inequalities between the sexes in their access to urban space and services. In particular, the division between waged and unwaged work and its impact on the social construction of gender and of the physical built environment is considered. The differences between definitions of feminism and their implications for action in planning and design are also explored, paying regard to the tensions between a feminist vision of a transformation of gender relations and the requirements of gender mainstreaming to accommodate the different needs of women and men in their everyday lives in urban space. Throughout the book, key issues recur, such as the importance of time and space in the experience of urbanism, resistances to change on the part of institutions and social structures, and the importance of networks. Education and training also appear as common themes, as do citizen participation and the structures of governance. The chapters are organised into four concepts, structures, empowerment and spatial quality. Contributors demonstrate a variety of approaches to the intersections of gender, women, cities, and planning, dealing with substantive and procedural issues in planning, at both local and regional scales. They stress the links between environmental sustainability and gender-sensitive urban development. The book concludes by putting forward an outlook for future action.

Genres: Nonfiction

357 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2013

About the author

Marion Roberts always wanted to be a fashion designer, but she studied science, alternative medicine, psychotherapy, and psychology instead. She also worked as a chef and taught people how to cook.

Marion started writing because she wanted a job she could do in her pajamas. Also, her friends kept saying her emails were too long, and she needed to find another place to put her stories.

She was born in Melbourne, which has always been her hometown. Marion's first book featuring the irrepressible Sunny Hathaway, Sunny Side Up, was published in 2008. Her latest book is the YA psychological thriller, Cry Blue Murder.

Reviews

[Sarah]

DNF - not because it wasn’t good but because a) I’ve finished my Masters and b) I ended up writing my dissertation on a related but different topic. I might come back to it some day or dip into the most interesting looking chapters.