In the Atlantic Monthly, in a section called, Atlantic Cities section, "Place Matters,"
Clare Foran explores how urban planners in Vienna, Austria, take into account
how men and women use public space differently. This program began in 1999. City administrators used
questionnaires to solicit information on the daily habits of their citizens.
They found that "The majority of men reported using either a car or public
transit twice a day -- to go to work in the morning and come home at night.
Women, on the other hand, used the city’s network of sidewalks, bus routes,
subway lines and streetcars more frequently and for a myriad reasons."
More probing allowed designers to create an environment that made daily
activities convenient for all people, regardless of age and ability. Despite the success of the project, city administrator Ursula Bauer still finds that "Gender can be an emotional issue . . . When you tell people
that up until now they haven’t taken the women’s perspective into
account they feel attacked. We still have people asking, ‘Is this really
necessary?'"
The article is so well done
I encourage you to scroll down and read. I would also ask you to consider how
the gender division of labor (both at work and at home) and cultural norms
regarding male and female safety influence the "social construction of space,"
and not just in Vienna. That is, how the use of space is shaped by how we live.
I think what Vienna is doing is ingenious, humane, feminist. It's just
downright smart.
