It’s harder for women to deal with the effects of poor urban planning

I read a book at the start of the year called Invisible Women which had a profound impact on how I viewed the world. The author describes how the world around us is designed using data which doesn’t take into account gendered experience, and therefore design choices often take male experience as the norm. This data gap on women’s experiences means women are systematically ignored in vital design choices in a number of areas — from technology to healthcare to public restrooms.

Essentially, we live in a world designed by men for men.

One of the discussions in this book that really stood out to me was around urban planning and public transport. Majority of the world’s public transport systems are designed taking the typical male journey as the norm — from home to work (CBD) and then from work to home. This style of journey completely ignores the more ‘atypical’ travel patterns of women due to the care responsibilities traditionally placed on us. Unlike men, the nature of care responsibilities placed on women mean our journeys often involve multiple destinations per trip, such as: taking kids to school, buying groceries, going to work, going to the bank, running errands etc. These ‘atypical’ journeys aren’t accounted for in public transport design. It is incredibly rare to have public transport systems which cater for journeys within one’s suburb — most suburban public transport entails busses that lead from home to the train station, and trains lead from the train station to the city.

Additionally, particularly in the way new suburban developments are created, women’s safety concerns aren’t taken into consideration when designing train stations and bus routes. This is glaringly obvious to me living in the outer Western suburbs in Melbourne, where only 13% of the population in my Local Government Area live within 400 meters of a bus stop. These bus stops are often poorly lit, can be surrounded by bushes and other places for attackers to hide, and are often in suburban roads with limited street lighting. With multiple incidents of women being attacked as they walk home, clearly this sort of poor urban planning decision-making becomes a huge barrier that prevents women using public transport safely.

According to the World Bank, women only occupy 10% of senior jobs at the world’s leading architecture firms. Urban planning is a field that has historically been dominated by men and their legacy, and as a result every city in the world has been designed and built by men.

Urban planning shapes the environment around us, and that environment shapes our quality of life. When design choices are based on data which excludes the gendered experiences of half the population, that half of the population inevitably has a poorer experience interacting with their surrounding environment.

These disadvantages are exacerbated for migrant women who don’t have support networks in Australia.

New urban developments on the fringes of major cities provide for low-density relatively affordable housing, making them attractive to recently arrived migrants. However, their sprawling nature and design choices make them hell for public transport users — especially women.

It becomes exceedingly difficult for those without a drivers license or access to a car to engage with their community, resulting in inevitable social isolation. For migrant women who are financially dependent on their husbands, the poor urban planning can contribute to issues of entrapment.

There was an SBS article in June which covered a series of tragic suicides of 7 Indian women in the same local government area within months of one another. It cited domestic abuse and poor access to public transport resulting in diminished mobility and social isolation as possible contributing factors.

Obviously these are all incredibly complex issues, and in no way am I implying it’s as simple as saying bad urban design = isolation = suicide. But, I do think the poor urban planning of the areas which many migrant women reside disproportionately exacerbate the challenges of the migrant experience in Australia, especially for those in abusive relationships, which are prevalent in our communities.

The built environment around us has an immeasurable impact on how we organise our lives and society, and the patriarchal planning of our cities is an issue of gendered data not being collected nor considered in planning decisions.