Barker, A., Bravo, L. and Petrella, L. (2024) Editorial: Urban Development Together with Girls and Young Women. The Journal of Public Space, 9 (1). pp. 1-10. ISSN 2206-9658
Abstract
Public spaces are crucial to everyday life, providing sites for community interaction, mobility, and recreation. Traditionally, however, urban planning has been shaped by a gendered perspective that privileges masculine assumptions that overlook intersectional needs and reinforce societal inequalities for women and girls. This special issue, ‘Let Her Guide You’, developed in partnership with UN-Habitat as part of the Her City initiative, underscores the imperative of incorporating gender and youth perspectives into urban planning and design. The Her City Initiative, a collaboration between UN-Habitat and the Shared City Foundation, advances this goal by equipping urban actors worldwide with tools to integrate the perspectives of girls and young women into urban development. Launched in 2021, the Her City Toolbox has supported over 350 independent initiatives with registered users in 120 countries, demonstrating its effectiveness in fostering inclusive urban environments. This special issue features papers by young academic scholars selected from the Her City Master students alumni network, including case studies of feminist planning from Heerlen (The Netherlands), Nairobi (Kenya), Stockholm (Sweden), and Weimar (Germany). It also includes a diverse range of invited viewpoints advocating for collaborative approaches to urban development together with girls and young women, complemented by illustrative case studies from around the globe, including Belgium, Iran, Italy, Jamaica, Mozambique, Palestine, Peru, South Africa, Sweden, Thailand, Uganda, and the United Kingdom. By centring gender and youth perspectives in the urban planning process, this special issue highlights the potential to transform public spaces into more equitable, engaging, and sustainable environments. It calls on city makers, researchers, and community leaders to ensure that contemporary cities are designed with and for everyone.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | Ⓒ The Authors. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution - Non Commercial 4.0 International License https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ |
Keywords: | gender equity; public space; inclusive design; urban planning; youth perspectives; innovation. |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Leeds |
Academic Units: | The University of Leeds > Faculty of Education, Social Sciences and Law (Leeds) > School of Law (Leeds) |
Funding Information: | Funder Grant number ESRC (Economic and Social Research Council) Not Known Home Office Room 811 Not Known |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Publications |
Date Deposited: | 31 Oct 2024 09:56 |
Last Modified: | 31 Oct 2024 09:56 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | City Space Architecture |
Identification Number: | 10.32891/jps.v9i1.1824 |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:218896 |