Urban Sociology

Lec 12: 01/02/2024

Gender inclusive cities

Dr. Amrita Sen

Department of Humanities and Social Sciences
Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur
email: amrita.sen@hss.iitkgp.ac.in
GENDER IN URBAN PLANNING AND DESIGN- WORLD BANK (UN-HABITAT)

• Increase understanding of gender concerns and needs in urban planning and design

• Develop staff and partners’ capacity to address gender issues in select human settlement areas

• Encourage staff and partners to integrate gender perspectives into policies, projects, and
programmes for sustainable urban development

• Support institutionalization of the culture of gender mainstreaming and gender equality through
the implementation of gender-sensitive projects/programmes and the monitoring of gender
mainstreaming progress.

• KEY AREAS OF URBAN LIFE WHERE WOMEN FACE EXCLUSION: assets for livelihood
and basic service, right to property, equal wages, safety, decision-making, services related to
sexual and reproductive health
• Promote the development of multi-functional sub-centers (i.e. polycentric development) so
that people of all genders, regardless of their roles and responsibilities, can access basic goods and
services within proximity to residential areas without making long trips into the main/core city.
• Integrate transport and land use considerations to reduce the number of neighborhoods or
settlements with limited access to economic opportunities, services, or infrastructure within the
metro region, thereby making it easier to balance care work with economic activity.
• Promote the distribution of economic opportunities throughout the metro region to enhance
access to employment, reduce commutes, and avoid unsustainable, monocentric development,
which can negatively impact the compatibility of care work with economic work as well as limit
participation in the public realm.
• Expand public transport systems to neighborhoods in peripheral areas of the metro region to
enhance inclusion and participation in public life for women, sexual and gender minorities, and
people with disabilities, especially in cities where low-income areas are outside the main city.
• Promote the creation or protection of a network of green, accessible, and safe public spaces
throughout the metro region of various sizes and uses to provide sufficient and convenient
opportunities for recreation, play, and exercise, and to help mitigate the negative impacts of
climate change and air pollution, which often burden women and girls, as primary caregivers, in
particular.
• Restore and rehabilitate contaminated waterways and water bodies to reduce exposure to
health risks, particularly for women and children who might spend more time in residential areas
on the metro’s periphery.
• What percentage of women use the pedestrian walk ways?

• How easy, difficult, safe are pavements for women walkers?

• Are walk ways planned with soft landscaping that is friendly for children?

• Are side walks low and comfortable to get on and off, continuous?

• How is the lighting planned on the motorized roads and on neighbourhood roads?

• Are road signs displayed graphically, so that they can be understood by women
with low literacy levels?
 Access to municipal services

• Water

Women are generally responsible for water collection and storage. Time
spent on filling and fetching water increases if the number of taps is less
than optimal, or the water supply is irregular or if the water pressure is
low. Time spent by women in accessing services (waiting for water
tankers or for the municipal supply) reduces the time available for
income earning activities, leisure or education.
• Sanitation

Slum dwellers have poor access to toilets. Slums are generally

unconnected to city sewerage. Since most slums are illegal, slum
dwellers cannot build toilets at home. Non availability of/ and
unfriendly community toilets (poorly designed/ maintained with bad
infrastructure, inadequate numbers of seats) increase people’s health
risk from gastrointestinal/reproductive health problems. In particular,
poor women undergo tremendous hardships in their search for safe
spaces (increasingly in big cities) and timings (before sun rise and after
sunset) to defecate.
• Solid waste management

Ineffective solid waste management creates highly unsanitary conditions

in cities with huge environmental threats to all residents. In slums, it has
resulted in huge mounds of un-disposed waste. Because women spend
more time inside homes/settlements – either in home based occupations
or as home makers, the health risk from highly unsanitary environments
to them is higher.