Planning with an Intersectional Lens: Women-friendly City Design

When we think "city planning" and "urban design", we don't always think of those who are made invisible in the process. Jane Jacobs, out of all the well- known 20th century contributors to contemporary urban theory, drew closest to understanding gender mainstreaming in cities. She conceived a number of simple solutions to tackle the issue of women's safety and wellbeing, promoting a particular kind of mixed use community with design aspects catered toward community cohesion. Nonetheless, ask any working mother, female student, night shift sex worker how the configuration of the urban landscape in many cities affects their mobility, feelings of safety, and economic opportunity, and a number of concerns will arise. With little exception, our urban landscape neglects the needs of women by missing a number of considerations. Although innumerable cases could be listed, I will explore a few such scenarios:

1. Mothers working at night 

Women, especially single mothers, who work at night have few support options to take care of children. In some professions, such as nursing, women often must take night shifts for the advancement of their careers. Other times, women must work at restaurants, bars, and drive-thrus to earn sufficient wages to support themselves and their children. However, the lack of 24/7 childcare in urban areas signals that this need has not yet been raised by institutions.

2. Young women at college campuses 

Young women have at some point felt the fear of walking on their campuses at night. Sexual assault happens often, and college campuses, unfortunately, are no safe haven. Women walking back to their car at night from evening classes may have to cross the vast parking lot to reach their car. Parking lots are not always well lit and a long walk through an isolated area may induce feelings of fear. A simple solution could be to designate parking spots closer to campus buildings in well-lit areas for those with classes at night, and particularly for women.

3. Sex workers 

These individuals experience a number of vulnerabilities, and the trip home at night is often dreaded. However, exploitation can also occur during work hours. In these cases, it is important to draft up solutions so that protect women from workplace harassment. One barrier to action is the relationship between sex workers and law enforcement, as the lack of trust between the two prevents women's safety from being addressed. Labor laws might need to be altered to protect women in this line of work from harassment and exploitation, etc.

4. Women unaccompanied in the city 

At night, independence can become a problem. Often women are warned not to walk alone at night; nonetheless, they may want or need to conduct their activities on their own. Fear about safety in the city poses a severe restriction to women's mobility. Changes can be made to transit, by making it more frequent at night and extending its hours, while also improving signage to improve transit accessibility. Additionally, women-only taxi service or women-only train cars at night may reduce cases of harassment and increase feelings of security. Signs in transit targeted to all riders should raise awareness of issues toward women's safety and promote a culture of communal surveillance and protection. Also, lighting, neighborhood maps, building frontages with windows facing toward the sidewalk, and mixed use neighborhoods with services close to homes lie among the spectrum of interventions that can be made.

5. Women balancing home life and work life 

Balancing domestic duties such as taking care of children and earning wages can present a daunting task for women. There have been attempts, such as the Cuban Family Code, at creating equal division of labor in the household between partners so that women are not burdened. Nonetheless, enforcement has proven difficult.  Mixed use communities engender a supportive structure such as through close by services such as child care, grocery stores, and medical facilities, while also reducing the need to commute long ways to work by placing good jobs close to homes, and also enabling community surveillance so that women feel safe in both public and private spheres.

It is clear that gender-friendly cities will require cross-scalar solutions. Some, such as labor laws, can be made at the higher rungs by policymakers, while others can be dealt with at a DIY level from community advocates or through collaboration with planners and designers.

Read more on this topic: http://www.citylab.com/commute/2013/09/how-design-city-women/6739/

A Vancouver-based organization, Women Transforming Cities,
holds monthly cafe-style dialogues to draft solutions
for a report for the post-2015 UN Habitat- New Urban Agenda

The Role of Happiness and Social Sustainability in Improving Campus Planning

A college campus ought to accommodate the needs of students; after all, they are the reason for the institutions in the first place. Nonetheless, there are instances in which planning rejects the needs of many students. A student-run dialogue session called Lenses of Sustainability at my campus brought together university students to share their opinions on social sustainability, especially with regards to how our happiness shapes how our environment and vice versa. This reminded me of the role of participatory methods in improved campus planning. Students shared their opinions of how the social dimensions in their university experience were often neglected, and thus, left them feeling less fulfilled. This could be attributed to general characteristics of university life, which create stress for college students. Often, these are unpreventable aspects of large university life. However, a lot of the time, underlying students happiness was the configuration of campus built environment, especially with regards to affordable housing, public space, and social services. This can affect the wellbeing of students.

Students mentioned coziness as a contributor to their happiness. Thus, how public spaces and buildings are designed can reinforce this. Another was nature and the related recreational opportunities-- how can a campus retain enough green space? If we are to build more compactly, how can we ensure that nature is still accessible to promote social wellbeing? Another significant issue was being a part of a community. This is challenging in a large school, but it is an aspect that can be improved through improving accessibility to student housing, both permanent and temporary (even a student hostel).  Students who must commute for one or two hours each day to and from campus, not only feel separated from campus life, but when they are expected to juggle the various responsibilities of being a student and they lose much of their time commuting each day, it is unavoidable that they will be stressed. Affordable housing seemed to be the most significant strategy for students' quality of life to be improved. It also says a lot for a campus very much focused on environmental but not social sustainability-- these two are deeply intertwined. 

A Participatory Planning Mini-Experiment: Students Express Concerns in Planning Negotiations through an Urban Diagnosis Walk

Participatory planning has become an emerging characteristic of contemporary planning best practices. Having evolved since the 1970s, as concern arose of the dangers of top-down planning, it consists of a variety of practical tools planning agencies can use in their scoping process. Particularly useful in uncovering 'insurgent planning histories' (Sandercock, 1998), an example organization that employs such tools is Collectiu Punt 6, an action based in Barcelona, engaging women architects, planners, and activists. Their goal is game-changing for design-related gender discrimination: involve women in the planning process to transform cities to be safer and catered more toward their needs. As with all participatory planning tools, limitations exists, as social structures can impose arbitrary restrictions via 'tokenism' so that ideas are not actualized (Arnstein, 1969). In an undergraduate contemporary planning issues course at my university, we tried out one of these planning tools ourselves to see what we could gain from the experience.

As part of this collaborative planning mini-experiment, we were provided a map of the urban diagnosis walk. For this experience, we would do a round in a select area of our campus and make observations and take photographs as we pleased. The select area of the campus is a rapidly transforming site, with modern, high-rise housing construction being built to accommodate a rising population of mostly international students, as well as other efforts to include more mixed-use development and some public spaces. We were given a list of guiding questions to help facilitate concerning issues of spatial visibility (i.e., components and vegetation), social visuality (i.e., street activity), information (i.e., signage), and "prohibited" spaces (i.e., use and appropriation).

Students insights demonstrated that this tool ought to be used more in the planning process to hear a diverse range of perspectives. For example, some students pointed to the inherent inequities in building  housing using expensive steel-frame construction catered to a small percentage of the population who could afford it. The result is that many local students commute for more than an hour to campus each day. Others wondered about the inadequate signage given the extent of building construction sites. Some asked questions about the frequency of dead zones on the campus; these are places that have potential but due to walls without actual frontage and windows, they become mere passage ways. Another critical observation was whether small bus transit through this area was adequate and also accessible to other needs (i.e., parents with strollers) and how sanitized some parts of the campus were, inhibiting any form of creativity. Cohesive visions for planning for the future demand innovative tools that allow different perspectives to be heard. In this case, students will be the primary users of a space, so why not involve them more? Participatory planning using the urban diagnosis walk could be one such tool at very low cost.

Sources:

Arnstein, Sherry. 1969. "A ladder of citizen participation", American Institute of Planners, 35:4, 216- 224

Sanderock, Leonie (Ed). 1998. "Introduction", in Making The Invisible Visible: A Multicultural Planning History. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Urban Asia: Secrets and Stereotypes Revealed! (Part 2)

Often admired from abroad as an ideal school lunch program and nutrition education model for other countries around the world, Japanese "Shokuiku" has its flaws, too. Perhaps it is difficult to tell as Japan, when compared to other developed countries, has a much lower obesity rate and one of the highest longevity rates in the world. And speaking with bias as an admirer of Japan myself, Japanese culture typically aims at any projects it conducts right. However, as is the case here, sometimes striving for perfection while running a national program can lead to top-down policy. That in itself is a limitation.

Based on researching current trends and issues in Japan's food self-sufficiency, food safety, nutrition, and changing consumption patterns during a Comprehensive International Education Program on Sustainable Agriculture in Asia, Japan's youth are on a path expected with the commercialisation of the food system characterised by greater control of the food retail sector. Much like its North American and European counterparts, Japan's youth are collecting food miles with their changing diets, by consuming more store-bought, pre-packaged and processed foods shipped from China, Brazil, and Southeast Asian countries with few if any local ingredients. It is clear what this could mean for Japan's highly cherished "Washoku" cuisine, which recently received World Heritage recognition.

In an effort to teach Japanese youth better food habits for cultural preservation and societal health outcomes, policymakers developing Shokuiku have misunderstood a fundamental aspect of food choice in our modern society by calling for more responsibility among individuals as well as a return to traditional family values of eating dinner as a family.

While Shokuiku might have specified goals that many progressive advocates of food security, food self-sufficiency, localism and holistic nutritional education might agree with, its approaches are somewhat misguided. For instance, it does not consider that individual responsibility is not entirely equitable, as many people make food choices based on economic capabilities. Especially for low-earning members of our society (i.e., students), we cannot expect that they will make healthier and local choices when growing prevalence of supermarkets has made processed and imported foods more affordable. Also, the policy ignores other critical aspects that contribute to distanciation from food's source of Japan's modern context, such as changing family patterns due to urbanisation and more women entering the workforce. This means family dinners in the traditional sense are less likely to occur. It also implies that women should be primary caregivers by providing meals to her family, though we know it is unfair to assign domestic gender roles to women vs men.

Policy regarding Shokuiku must include more opinion from various members of society, including those marginalised by its initial policy, like women and low-income groups. Polycentric governance implicit in operating from a food sovereignty lens could help guide the program's reform. As a result, solutions that are more all-encompassing could be adopted. In addition, more responsibility regarding food choice should be shifted to the government, particularly the education system in engaging youth through curricular change. Whether this is best done from a federal level or interpreted and delivered by subnational governents remains a fundamental research question. These changes could include food literacy workshops or incorporate food-related lessons in all courses, and improvements to the already existent and mandatory home-economics curriculum to teach cooking, food preparation and storage, and critical thinking about traceability and food chains.

Washoku

Urban Asia: Secrets and Stereotypes... Revealed! (Part 1)

If there were ever a chance to pretend I was running a segment of Anthony Bourdain's "Parts Unknown," this would be it, as I reveal the lesser known features of bustling cities on the other side of the Pacific. I had the opportunity this past summer to travel for two full months around Indonesia, Singapore, and Japan.

In some places, the Southeast Asian stereotype of motorized rickshaw drivers almost running over pedestrians came alive. In Jakarta, I witnessed first hand what I heard of many times before: a city overwhelmed with congestion, a thick blanket of smog covering the city removing any visibility of the horizon. The megalopolis, a term used to categorize this massively sprawling cluster of metropolitan regions, exhibited signs of widening inequality. Neighborhoods harboring extravagant designer malls offering valet service bordered towering public housing projects in poor condition and  slums. Known as kampungs, these areas consisted of substandard shack style housing and narrow roads covered in potholes.


It's difficult to believe that if you fly one hour by plane away from the series of areas that comprise the Jakarta supercity, you land in a small city inhabited by university students engaging in creative urbanism projects: Yoygakarta. In tourism books, it is oft-described as the gem of Java, a cultural and culinary paradise. Beyond the wonderful street shopping, street art in all alleys and under every overpass, and food carts offering the most delectable morsels of Central Javan cuisine, I came across this late night urbanism intervention in the Southern City Square (Jalan Alun Alun Kidul). The concept is simple, but phenomenal: for 10,000 IDR (roughly 0.70 USD) you rent an old VW beetle and ride it around a track. The vehicles are revamped with bicycle pedals, padded seats, neon lights, and a music system offering a list of popular pop and hip hop tunes. As part of a local custom, you take on the tree challenge, in which you are blindfolded and pedal the car between two trees. The myth is that those who can manage will have good fortune. This creative entertainment caters to all ages and backgrounds- tourists (though there were very few), families, and college students.

To be continued.... Urban Asia: Secrets and Stereotypes... Revealed! (Part 2)

Finding our Niche in the Urban Food System

This blog post is inspired by a conservation my classmate, a food science student, and I just had about finding our niche in the city food system. After having spent the morning volunteering for an urban farm in Vancouver, she wrote me: "From all I've seen, small scale organic farming is labour intensive and unprofitable." This has led me to wonder why we learn in the classroom that we should somehow contribute to the regional food system's transformation when we are simultaneously told by those experienced in the field that our ideas about becoming entrepreneurs of farm to table industries and urban farmers are risky and often unrealistic.

Moreover, organic regulations are too difficult to keep up with for many business owners, especially as land prices in Vancouver are so high to begin with. So my friend and I brainstormed further. I recently sat through a presentation by a graduate of my undergraduate program who began his enterprise by working East Africa with coffee farmers. He eventually started the non-governmental organization, Agrodev, to expose coffee farmers to niche markets by helping them become certified Organic. He late opened a coffee shop in Vancouver, where demand for such products is high. Years later, he now is a successful wholesale coffee roaster who also educates local coffee entrepreneurs about FairTrade and other sustainability and social equity related added value practices.

I also thought of Zak the Baker, a family acquaintance in South Florida, who completed his undergraduate degree, took up a baking apprenticeship in Sweden, and returned to South Florida to become a sourdough bread connoisseur whose local claim to fame began at my neighborhood farmers market in Miami. Just last year, he moved up the urban food system ladder by becoming a bread wholesaler and business owner of a warehouse bakery in the city's budding arts district. His business is on the rise, though he intends to keep it at a local scale. His secret was simply having taken advantage of a locally rare product, fresh bread topped with condiments from all sorts of regions (a sort of creative toast concoction, really). His bread business along with another Miami local FairTrade coffee business, Panther Coffee, add to the urban fabric of the neighborhood.

My friend and I have moved on to discussing the concept of high-value commodities desired in our food. An aspiring business owner, she wants a "sustainable" business economically and environmentally in order to keep our products locally-sourced, but also generate income. Where is our niche? Looks like we have some exploring to do.



Photo taken from: mitchandmeltakemiami.com