For everyone who feels as if the world is run by grumpy old men, there is Glasgow.
In October, the city council voted unanimously to put women at the heart of all its town planning and urban design. Glasgow has declared itself the first feminist city in Britain.
Feminist urbanism,they declare, “advocates for a type of urban planning that promotes inclusivity and puts the needs of women, non-binary and genderfluid people at the forefront of the way we think of the urban landscape”.
It’s not that Glasgow was explicitly built for men. As in most cities, decades of Scottish planners, developers and lawmakers probably didn’t think much about gender at all. They might have regarded their work as “gender neutral”.
But gender neutral defaults to men, just as the old “normal” design for streets and buildings defaulted to people who can see, hear and walk up steps.
At stake are issues of access, participation and basic safety.
Last year a group called Young Women Lead, set up by YMCA Scotland, surveyed women and non-binary people on how they felt in public. Most said they felt unsafe or uncomfortable on buses and at bus stops. In Glasgow, only five in 214 respondents felt safe in the park.
As a rule, the city doesn’t light its parks, so as not to disrupt the wildlife, including foxes and nocturnal birds, bats and insect pollinators. During the COP26 climate conference in November last year, some Glaswegian women had to walk through a dark park because police had closed nearby streets.
There was an outcry and council resolved to improve the lighting. But it didn’t happen. Officers announced they would hold meetings in unlit parks to consider the options.
“I can only imagine holding a meeting in a dark park will confirm that lighting is needed,” said frustrated Labour councillor Jill Brown.
Protest for better lighting in Glaswegian parks.
The new policy jumpstarts the whole process. It was initiated by Green councillor Holly Bruce, who says, “Council agrees that in order to create public spaces that are safe and inclusive for women, and accessible for all members of the community, it is fundamental that women are central to all aspects of planning, public realm design, policy development and budgets.”
Specific plans don’t yet exist. “To be honest,” says Bruce, “I don’t know what we’ll do yet because the whole point is to consult with women and ask them what they want.”
Likely to be on the list, along with improved lighting: traffic speeds and other steps to make the streets safer for children, more universal access ramps on street corners, more child-friendly facilities and services, better security on public transport and more public toilets.
It won’t be enough: building a feminist city takes a lot more than park lighting and security guards on the train. Men have to step up, for starters.
But with a bit of luck and a lot of goodwill, this process could unlock much bigger debates about how to make urban societies work better. For women. For everyone. And for the foxes and nocturnal pollinators, too. With design leading the way.
Parks are popular in Glasgow, though less so at night.
Design for Living appears weekly in Canvas magazine.
