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Conference Proceedings – XXIX International Seminar on Urban Form
ISUF 2022: Urban Redevelopment and Revitalisation. A Multidisciplinary Perspective
6th June–11th September 2022, Łódź–Kraków
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565 565
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Dr. Jiayi Jin, Dr. Nadia Bertolino, Kexin Huang
Department of Architecture and Built Environment, Northumbria University, UK
10.34658/9788367934039.45
Gender Walks in the City: An Exploratory Study on Gender-
Responsive Urban Planning
Abstract: This research investigates gender walks as a possible method for knowledge-gathering in urban planning and design
processes. It is positioned within the field of gender-sensitive design, which aims to tackle gender inequalities in cities.
This project ascertains the complexity of intersectional gender-aware design and therefore looks to utilise the potential
of walking – in its simplicity and effectiveness – as a responding strategy. A comparison of three existing exploratory walk
practices and insights gained from these walks outlines the criteria for the initial design of our walking audit method. The
potential and limitations are tested through its implementation, the analysis of the findings and the development of design
responses with participants. The theoretical knowledge gained on gender-aware planning and the complexity of the issue from
both urban design and sociological perspectives provide support and critique for the ongoing City Centre Transformation
Programme, to optimise public spaces for women’s inclusion, safety and enjoyment.
Keywords: Cities, Exploratory Walks, Gender dynamics, Social sustainability, Urban design and planning.
Introduction
Due to globalisation, urbanisation and capitalism, the global economy has shifted to an increased demand
in feminisation to increase the available workforce. Because of this, women’s role within cities is changing, from
being limited to the private domain of the city, to expanding into the public. The typology and morphology
of urban spaces, however, are still behind in their evolution to keep pace with this socio-economic transformation.
Transferring this socio-economic change into spatial form is crucial to increase social resilience and allow cities
to adapt to changing demographic contexts. In recent years, the topic of gender-equal spatial planning has gained
more and more attention as the impacts of urban planning and design on women are brought to light (Terraza
et al. 2020), ranging from spatial activism to spatial consequences of gender inequality, these discussions are
gradually becoming more apparent and addressed in research topics (Fisher, Naidoo 2016; Johnston 2017; Lobao,
Saenz 2002).
The research is positioned within the field of gender-sensitive design and explores the potential convergence
between the feminist concern with a revaluation of women's experiences through the category of the everyday
and the work of Michel de Certeau on the practices of everyday life (De Certeau 1984). The designed research
activities aim to tackle gender-based inequalities in cities using the method of exploratory gender walks which
ascertains the complexity of intersectional gender-aware design and therefore looks to utilise the practice of
walking audits as a responding strategy. In this research, a comparison of three existing practices on gender walks
including Jane's Walk, exploratory walks organised by Col·lectiuPunt6 and Wowenability were studied. Based
on the comparative studies, authors adopted the method of spatial documentation in the organised gender walk
at the city centre of Newcastle, UK. This gender walk allows participatory processes in the urban realm to become
transformative, where women can be active participants of the analysis and neighbourhood improvements.
The gained theoretical knowledge on gender-aware planning and diagnosis of the everyday environment from gender
walks provides support and critique for the ongoing City Centre Transformation Programme in Newcastle, UK.
Research Background
Gender Inequalities in Cities
The 20th century marks the start of normalising women’s involvement in the city and growing inclusion in the
public domain and marking the massive shift of daily gender patterns in the city (Meece et al. 2006), defined
by people’s lifestyle, composed of the shifting societal views and expectations, as well as individual ambitions,
thereby working as an invisible demographic shift in cities. With the dawn of the World Wars in the 20th Century
566 Jiayi Jin, Nadia Bertolino, Kexin Huang
many women were left to not only care for the family as they had been, but also become the main source of income
for the family while the men were off to war, thereby introducing women in large numbers into the formal
production economy (Goldin, Katz 1989; Dawood 2014).
This meant that women frequented the public domain in the absence of the majority men, leaving them free
to have access to and control public services and spaces (Dawood 2014). As a consequence, women’s patterns
of travel and activities in the city are also significantly changing over time; while they were earlier confined to
a smaller range of use within the city, mostly within their direct community, they are gradually increasing that
range for their employment and ambitions. This contrasts significantly with the lives of men, who have for a long
time been well integrated into the urban environment or even the ones to define the public domain and are seeing
the increased numbers of women in their fields of study, their workplaces, and public spaces. The city was
therefore used to divide and control the ‘natural division between the sexes’ (Roberts 1998) through its structure
that rigidly defined public and private spaces; men’s and women’s spaces respectively (Kuhlmann 2013).
Therefore, bringing threats to women with their increased patronage, who were not considered in the design
of public spaces as direct participants.
Due to the above reasons, we can see gender inequality exists in all societies around the world. The trending
hashtag #metoo, ordinally introduced by activist Tarana Burke, collected several million stories about sexual
harassment and assault against women every year (Khomami 2017; Tuerkheimer 2019; Harmer, Lewis 2022).
In 2021, there are 690 thousand incidents of stalking and harassment were recorded in the UK by police, a 21%
rise from the previous year (Julios 2022), the situation is only getting worse. The difficulties with overcoming
gender inequalities are rooted in the social construction of genders: In ‘women working’ Rosar Casanovas et al.
define gender as:
[a] societal and cultural construct based on the biological differences between the sexes that assign
different capacities, behaviour, emotional and intellectual characteristics to girls, women, boys, men, and
trans* people. These attributes vary according to society relationship between sexes. (Casanovas 2009).
The definition makes clear that these attributes are changeable due to their socially contracted nature We live
in an unequal society in which people have different opportunities and obligations depending on whether we are
women or men and this inequality also is reflected in the way that spaces are constructed. Urban environments
are the physical support of our everyday life, the way they are planned, as well as the locations where services are
provided, directly influence our living conditions. From an urbanist’s perspective, the question is how the history
of constant differences of treatment for people based on their gender influenced the built structures and how the
built structures and their functions are supporting a reproduction of these same power dynamics. Barbara Zibell
emphasises that:
social justice is not realizable in the absence of spatial justice: non-fulfillment of spatial requirements
enabling a member of society to live according to a preferred life model amounts to a failure of social
justice (Zibell 2013:76; Huning et al. 2019).
Moreover, she states that it is remarkable that gender awareness is not connected with other issues in cities more
often (Zibell 2013). At the same time, sociologists like Renate Ruhne sees both space and gender roles as societal
constructs that therefore are interconnected or even inseparable. As an example of this, she clarifies that the gender
roles often seen in the appropriation of city space (men in the public domain, women in the private) are not
a given, but instead are a structure developed in the urban society in the 19th century. The gender-related
behaviour in the urban structure is produced and reproduced from urban planners' perspectives.
While it is clear that spatial intervention cannot solve a number of the components of socioeconomic problems,
it is necessary to explore the boundaries between the two. Unfortunately, gender issues have often disappeared
from the planning agenda, (Tummers 2010, 2013) even though there is an agreement about gender relevance
in planning and design. The new disconnection between gender and space leads to stagnation in some areas
of analysis of the issue. The question remains open, why gender awareness approach has such a hard time staying
in fashion. Objectives of sustainability, participation and emancipation (All very current in planning and design)
are seldom connected with feminist planning, even though they share a lot of the same methods. (Zibell 2013)
As women’s rights in the city continue to be violated and disrespected disproportionately due to social norms,
legal discrimination and economic inequality around the world (Ott 2017). It is especially necessary to look into
approaches that offer a louder voice to these people.
‘Flaneur’ vs ‘Flaneuse’: the Culture of Women Who Wander Cities
Solnit (2001) describes the city as ‘a constellation of body, imagination and the world’ in the ‘sky of human
culture’ (2001:290-291). Indeed, the modernisation and the changing face of the city impacted on the very act
of everyday walking. During the 19th and 20th century, an array of new possibilities, materialities, and stimuli –
567 Jiayi Jin, Nadia Bertolino, Kexin Huang
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but also new constraints – has impacted on the urban perceptions of the walker. Everyday walking in the city has
contributed to the choreography and social rhythms of everyday life. To some extent, walking has the potential
of unpredictability within the ordered space of the city. Echoing de Certeau (1984), walkers compose and perform
their own trajectories and spatial stories – paths of lived experience, of different significance and intensity.
Yet, walking – this ordinary, almost automatic action – has been further explored through ‘discursive’ and ‘conceptual’
ways as Wunderlich (2008) suggests.
The multiparametric living organism of the city has been the subject of interest for cultural circles and artists since
the middle of the 19th century. Examples of this include the European metropolises of Paris, Berlin and London.
The main exploratory method was walking, and in particular, the solitary male figure, who wandered through the
streets of the city observing the emerging modernity called ‘the flaneur1’. He traverses the space while being
detached from the elements making up the space. In many ways, the flaneur’s patterns can be related to tourists’
behaviours in space.
Nguyen and van Nes (2013) referenced Rousseau and Goethe’s concept of the flaneur when describing inherent
differences in the way women’s use of and presence in public space differs from men. The ‘female version’ of the
flaneur, the flaneuse, is described as being one of many versions of the flaneur, as opposed to a replica of the
umbrella term applied solely to women (Scholes 2016).
Flaneuse is the flaneur re-imagined. She is not a female flaneur but an entirely separate concept.
The Flaneuse acknowledges that women experience and explore cities in a completely independent and
unique way. (Tuzzeo 2021).
The flaneuse aligns with the flaneur in that their major concepts rely on the amount of spare time, aesthetic
detachment towards objects, crowds and scenery, and their ambiguity (Nguyen, van Nes 2013). Here is where the
role of the ‘badaud’ comes in; the consumer. The widespread presence of department stores became a catalyst
for women’s increased presence in public space, as both the flaneuse and the badaud, one who does not distance
herself from the subject of her attention. As Nguyen notes, ‘the city is not being experienced, but is reduced to
a place to consume’ (Nguyen, van Nes 2013:166).
The emergence of these two archetypes expanded women’s domains, from the interior of her home to the interior
of the department store, sometimes using the streets more than just as the corridor linking the two. While this was
a newly established freedom for women, it was not the same freedom experienced by the flaneur, as acknowledged
by Friedberg (1993). While her domain kept expanding as more domains and subjects of attraction emerged,
bringing her further into the public space of cities, the badaud was still objectified by the patriarchal, male-
dominated society. As such, she is also one of the objects the flaneur fixates on in the city.
As lifestyles differ from person to person and throughout different stages of life, there is a constant definition and
redefinition of the proportion of time dedicated to responsibilities and spare time in each person’s life. According
to these proportions, people can be divided into categories representing their lifestyles. This addresses the largest
difference in spatial use and experience between men and women in cities. Using the concept of the flaneur as
a guide, while the flaneur is able to separate themselves from their context to a certain extent, this is not possible
for the flaneuse to do the same, as the larger set of responsibilities they face inextricably ties them to their contexts.
For this distinction, the spatial conditions necessary to enable efficient mobility of people within different lifestyle
groups need to be identified, particularly considering which conditions they need and how they can be clustered
together in the city.
Methodology: Urban Walking Practices
Inspired by ‘Flaneur’ and ‘Flaneuse’ as described and Michel de Certeau’s work on urban space and narrative
in ‘The Practice of Everyday Life’ (De Certeau 1984), this research approaches walking as an everyday practice
by reflecting on the everyday experiences of pedestrians through the ‘pathological’, a deviation that breaks with
habitual relationships to the world and as such can illuminate aspects that otherwise often remain hidden.
It examines if and how ‘gender walks’ could become this tool which is a highly promising method of collecting
information and knowledge but has merely been worked on at the academic level. These walking practices have
mostly been implemented in an activist or political context.
To learn from the practice as a planning and design tool, it is necessary to develop clear criteria and a structural
overview of aims and outcomes, methods and implementation. By defining the limits and giving an outlook
on additional potentials gender walks can have, this project can help placing them in the framework of gender-
sensitive urban strategies. One potential lies in narrowing down the area and with it the number of stakeholders
1 The original concept of the flaneur as described by the French poet Charles Baudelaire, is a term exclusively used for men ‘who
walks the city to experience it’, he is a stroller who observes and consumes city life without being tied down to the inherent elements
of that life, of politics and relationships, instead viewing the city merely through an aesthetic lens.
568 Jiayi Jin, Nadia Bertolino, Kexin Huang
and diversity of individuals, while staying flexible towards the outcome. With the perspective of introducing
a direct connection between affected people and the examination of the issue, the practice can also address
the problem of a misbalance in representation.
The main research question of this research is: What knowledge and tools the practice of exploratory gender walks
can contribute to gender-sensitive planning? And this can be divided into two sub-questions: 1): What gender
inequalities have shown up between the social and spatial structures of the urban environment? 2) How it should
be explored through different exploratory walks? and 3): How gender walks can be evaluated to become
a productive tool for urban planning strategies? The introduction to the problem field is constructed through
an in-depth review of papers and books on gender inequalities, defined between the social and spatial structures
of the urban environment. The second sub-question leads to the analysis of three selected gender walk practices,
their strengths and weaknesses in supporting urban planning are also evaluated as below.
Comparison of Three Exploratory Walking Practices
We have studied and compared three types of gender walks organised by Jane's Walk, Col·lectiuPunt6
and Wowenability. The comparison of the walks type of urban area shows a wide range: The stronger
representation of city centres can be attributed to the fact that the walks chosen for the case study are often the
early ones of each organiser. Furthermore, it can be observed that the results of the walks in city centres are less
explicit than the results of residential neighbourhoods which problems may have already been more obvious.
It also has an influence if the areas examined are also the actual living area of the participants. In these cases, the
people are the real experts on the use.
Even though scientifically speaking all walks produce qualitative and not quantitative findings, in some examples
the methods of investigation are focused more on comparable, numerical results, while others present their results
as a collection of quotes by the participants and non-traceable general conclusions. Both approaches have their
strong points. What kind of findings a walk produces is formed by the way questions are prepared and presented:
A free discussion starting from the suggestion of a topic from the organisers leads to clearly qualitative
information, informing about the individual opinions. In contrast to this, surveys, which participants fill out in an
exploratory walk of ‘Womanability’ are successful to lead to very comparable information but miss out on any
additional things the walkers might have to say (Noeltner, Odin, Ouarraki 2017). For the purpose of an in-depth
discussion many of the practices combine their walk with another method, like an open talk during a coffee break
or an adjacent mapping session.
As the method of investigation, the question of openness towards the outcome is also related to the way of leading:
Col·lectiuPunt6 lets the participants decide on the route (Casanovas et al. 2015). The adopted methods require
more preparation time with the participants, and the organisers need to trust the capability of their group to handle
this exercise. In contrast to this, ‘Womenability’ and ‘Jane’s Walks’ have little or no time to work with the groups
beforehand (Noeltner, Odin, Ouarraki 2017; MacPherson 2018). In both cases the organisers decide on the route,
however, the difference in goals for the outcome allows Jane’s Walk to change the route spontaneously.
‘Womenability’ with their goal to gain representative findings and their comparably large groups is required
to use a more organised approach (Noeltner, Odin, Ouarraki 2017).
The style of conversation depends on the size of the group. Smaller groups tend to find it easier to focus, while
bigger groups can profit from the bigger amount of presented opinions. Walks with more than 20 people often
split the groups up into smaller sub-groups parts of the walk. The goal of having a diverse group and the definition
of diversity is not identical between the walks, as all of the planned walks claim diversity, but have different
results in numbers. While walking as a tactic is open to everyone and can be very inclusive, the important question
to ask is which kind of composition of the group helps the people to talk and discuss freely and which helps the
groups to contrast and challenge each other.
In the exploratory walks by ‘Womenability’, men are told at the beginning to only be observers. This is done with
the aim to control a dominance predicted by the organisers (Noeltner, Odin, Ouarraki 2017). On the other hand,
they have 50 % of children under 10 years of age in the exploratory walk in Paris by ‘Col·lectiuPunt6’ which
surely influences the topics of discussion among their mothers and fathers. The dynamic in the small group
of girls of the same age seems to have produced positive energy, which the outcomes profited from, so do some
of ‘Jane’s Walks’, where the participants are looking at their neighbourhood and develop a feeling of unity
(MacPherson 2018).
In terms of documentation, even though only one of organisers – ‘Col·lectiuPunt6’ has an explicit urban planning
and architecture background, it is still remarkable that it is the only one that presents a real method of spatial
documentation (Casanovas et al. 2015). It is a separate exercise, done after the walk and executed with broader
participants. None of the walks document spatially during with walk and therefore it would be difficult to use the
empirical results in a direct translation.
569 Jiayi Jin, Nadia Bertolino, Kexin Huang
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The lack of spatial documentation can also have practical reasons because writing down notes while walking has
its difficulties even if not done on the map. The surveys by ‘Womenability’ point to this: The simple design
of their survey is no coincidence (Noeltner, Odin, Ouarraki 2017). Further processing of the walks outcomes
is not just valuable for the justification of the method as a tool for urban planning, it is also connected to the
motivation of the participants and the effect on them in the future. For Jane’s walks that focus on the atmosphere
within the community and the direct impact of the walking experience can be enough as an outcome: If the
participants want to take their findings further, they can do so on their own or by publishing them on Jane’s walk
blog (MacPherson 2018). However, the more effort the participants put into the walk, the more the outcome needs
value it through its quality. The documentation videos for each walk by ‘Womenability’ might be more important
for the people who participated than for outsiders (Noeltner, Odin, Ouarraki 2017). The care for appropriate
processing of the walk, goes both for the communication of the findings and the right medium of presentation:
the communal effort should be visible.
Delivering the Gender Walk at Newcastle City Centre
By comparing three exploratory walks, we tried to apply the ‘ideal’ walking method for our project within urban
planning and design. The gender walk was designed by the research team, focuses on eight key streets and public
spaces under the City Centre Transformation Programme (CCTP), as shown in Figure 1. CCTP is a long-term
vision to transform Newcastle City Centre via a series of impactful interventions on both major thoroughfares and
some of quieter streets at the heart of the city centre, including further pedestrianisation (Newcastle City Council,
2022). It was aimed to deliver an inclusive, greener heart of the city that will benefit its people for generations
to come. The routes of the walks follow the logic of walking through a diverse environment. They vary for the
groups to pass not only places where they are familiar with and might not know well, but places with at least two
groups to gain comparable results. We recruited participants through social media, online platforms and physical
events – including our first public engagement at the Star and Shadow Cinema.
The high diversity in the neighbourhood itself leads to the decision of opting for diversity among groups instead
of within. We have successfully attracted 10 people from a wide range of backgrounds, including policemen,
academics, residents, urban designers and students. Within the walk, we enable the participants to communicate
freely with each other. The heart of the walk is a series of semi-structured interviews conducted with
the participants while walking. It took 1.5 hours to cover 2.8 km and three stops for discussion. With attention
to the lack of spatial documentation in past gender walk practices, at the start point, each participant was given
a bag containing a map displaying the route, a notebook, and a pen to record their emotions, sensations and
thoughts during the walk. Following the walk, a 2-hour-long reflective workshop and discussion took place at the
City Campus Library, Northumbria University, with tea and coffee provided.
Figure 1. Gender Walk Route, Newcastle upon Tyne
Source: unknown.
570 Jiayi Jin, Nadia Bertolino, Kexin Huang
Three participatory sessions were conducted during this post-walk session, the first one was an individual task.
The participants were asked to transfer their notes into pre-prepared large maps, with the favourable
and unfavourable aspects regarding gender-sensitive design and planning which produces spatial documentation
of the empirical results of the gender walk from the direct users of those spaces. At this point, the participants
were already being divided into two groups for the convenience of mapping. One is an all-female group consisting
of residents, an academic and PhD students in the Geospatial Department, and the other group includes an
ex-policeman and male senior lecturer in urban planning and a student in Geography. Therefore, the second and
third group sessions were subsequently carried out within these two groups. For the second session, each group
was led by one research investigator to discuss the Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats they
identified during the walk at Newcastle city centre. The results of the discussions were documented on both
the maps and a separate SWOT sheet. As an experimental method, some of the discussions were recorded from
the second task onwards. Despite the diversity in age, culture and nationality, both groups have more consensus
than conflicted opinions.
The third session was designed for the participants to be engaged with a visual-based co-creation process to pick
images prepared by the researchers that showcase a wide range of spaces and activities that can take place in the
city. The groups were asked to pick up to 10 images to envision future ‘scenarios’ in response to the question:
how can Newcastle city centre become a place to embrace diversity and promote inclusion? This led to flexible
discussions about the possible improvement of the city centre, which unsurprisingly moved beyond the gender-
specific problems, instead concerning a wider range of diversity and inclusion in the city. The inclusion of elder
and young females, cultural diversity, identification, children’s space, safety and security, as well as the aesthetics
of the urban environment. In the final plenary session, the researcher summarised the discussions, particularly the
overlaps and synergies between the two groups. Participants also expressed their thoughts and opinions that came
out of their discussions that were not mentioned. The workshop ends with a wide range of spatial documentations
of the gender walk, as well as recordings of some of the discussions which are all qualitative in nature.
Results and Discussions
To analyse the un-organised and wide collection of different kinds of information that the walk and the follow-up
workshop have provided, we used visual methods to show the findings. In the analysis of the development
of discussion, the topics that were talked about are colour coded. This was first done with the transcripts and then
transferred into the sequences of the walk to see which topics come up at what time and in which environment
and which topics often follow each other. This shows where the participants see connections between social and
spatial, or social and functional phenomena. The categories of topics that follow the topics introduced during the
walk are the following: Accessibility, Comfortability and Convenience, Identification, Safety and Security,
(In)visible borders, Appropriation of space, and the Overall feelings about the space. ‘Feeling about the space’
is a constant topic throughout the walk because it is always the question every other question is related to.
Figure 2. Linear visualisation showing the order, density and relation of discussed topics from the gender walk
Source: unknown.
571 Jiayi Jin, Nadia Bertolino, Kexin Huang
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Through the linear visualisation, a couple of interlinks between topics have also been identified. For example,
quality public spaces are attractive to people, and more people in these spaces, the safer people would normally
feel. During the gender walk, there were a couple of construction sites along Ridley Place and Saville Row, these
sites made two roads extremely narrow and pedestrians also experienced the effects of sound and air pollution,
so people turn to walk away from these places. On the other hand, on much wider commercial streets like
Northumberland Street or Grey Street, carefully placed clusters of benches and seating in public places offered
opportunities to be sociable and enjoy the outdoors. This is the value that has become even more precious after
the global pandemic of COVID-19.
Properly commissioned and placed street furniture can draw people to the location and give them reasons to stay.
Large groups of friends will use it, or it can even stimulate greater social interaction between strangers. Better-
designed streets contribute significantly to urban safety and security, the overall quality of the built environment
and appropriation of space, and they play a key role in the creation of inclusive, mixed communities. Like
Jacqueline Bleicher of Global Urban Design reminded us that:
...in a truly inclusive, universal place women feel safe, children run and play, the elderly can sit and
socialise, teenagers can chat with friends, and singles can read in comfort. Everyone can be their best self,
feel comfortable and be at peace with their neighbour… (Bleicher 2018).
Public spaces, like people, are not islands, they are connected to collective identity, everyday life, and the ways
that people interact and inhabit locally.
Table 1. Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats which have been identified by the participants
Internal
Strengths
Weaknesses
There’re many car-free spaces in the city centre,
the city centre is very pedestrian-friendly
Many furniture on the main commercial streets,
e.g. Grey Street and Northumberland Street
The city centre is always busy and lively
Wide streets with generous sidewalks, which are
accessible to disabled people and families with
strollers or pushchairs
It does not feel overcrowded even with a variety
of street performances
Some underpasses and pedestrian bridges
(e.g. Saville Row) are not well-maintained,
and feel unsafe during the night
Lack of play and green space for children, all
activities feel commercial-driven
Lots of dull concrete areas with many derelict
or abandoned buildings
Still have many vacant shops in the city centre
after Covid-19
Public spaces or streets lack their spatial
character
Disjointed streets with construction sites
Some recently built architecture is not
attractive
External
Opportunities
Threats
Lots of underused spaces to be planned
Some landscape trees have been recently planted
along the Grey Street
Derelict buildings have been removed for new
developments
Lots of empty buildings with attractive historic
facades
The current green space and city squares like the
Eldon Square doesn’t feel attractive enough to
stay, but it could have so much potential
The city hasn’t taken gender and other forms
of difference into account in planning
Increased street homeless
Increased crime and anti-
social behaviour,
especially during the night
Lack of funding for improvement in North
East communities, or the currently allocated
funding does not support the common good
Fears of more swingeing cuts and widespread
job losses as Newcastle City Council faces
budget crisis
Source: unknown.
572 Jiayi Jin, Nadia Bertolino, Kexin Huang
Table 2. Activities, services and other social and physical features voiced by participants that embrace diversity and promote
inclusion
Activities
Safety
Aesthetics
Others
Temporary art spaces
Lighting
Greenery
Make use of derelict buildings
Climbing walls for
children
Visibility
Street furniture
Independent cheap shops
Busking
Car-free pedestrians
Nice shop fronts
More benches
Skateboarding
Prevent antisocial behaviour
Attractive building
facades
Awnings
Pop-up stores
All-night coffee shops or bars
and shops in the underpass
Artworks
Wheelchair accessible street
Play area
Fountains & Water
More public toilets
Sculptures & Installations
Source: unknown.
Figure 3. Urban design visualisations produced from the workshop
Source: unknown.
Future Planning Strategies
Based on the SWOT table (Table 1), the participants transformed their feeling of the streets, squares and other
spaces into actionable goals for improvement. The future gender-responsive planning strategies are built
on understanding how people produce spaces through their everyday use and through the individual
or collaborative creation processes. The proposal introduces these strategies through activities, aesthetics, safety
and other aspects (Table 2), which are all in relation to each other, together contributing to the design of a gender-
sensitive city. Firstly, in recognising the hegemonic construction of profit-oriented spaces, incorporating different
social activities can appropriate urban spaces in a less or non-commodified way and generate a responsive urban
design that embraces diversity and promote inclusion. For instance, some underused spaces can be transformed
into temporary art spaces and pop-up streets where different social groups can enjoy the spaces equally.
Secondly, regarding safety issues, having more lights to illuminate dark spaces like the underpasses and allies
is very helpful in reducing women and other vulnerable social groups’ feelings of inconvenience, ill-at-ease and
unsafe in those environments. Moreover, as visibility is also associated with seeing and being seen by other people,
having all-night shops like coffee and bars in those areas can help to bring liveliness, thus increasing their sense
of safety even at night. Additionally, since Newcastle is a city famous for its drinking culture and the night
economy, the drunk people on the streets can be intimidating for women and other vulnerable social groups, who
have higher levels of fear of harassment and violence in public spaces (Yavuz, Welch 2010; Jorgensen, et al. 2013).
Hence more places or facilities designed for non-alcohol activities may help to reduce the proportion
of drunken people in the streets and reduce people’s fear of anti-social behaviour.
573 Jiayi Jin, Nadia Bertolino, Kexin Huang
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Thirdly, nice aesthetic features are closely related to positive feelings and sometimes the perceived comfortability
and safety of a street. More greeneries, street furniture, and other well-designed features like nice shop fronts,
attractive buildings, artworks and fountains can bring positive feelings to people, as well as increase their
willingness to stay and enjoy the spaces. Lastly, other key services and amenities identified by the participants
are presented in Table 2. Some ideas are strategic responses particular to the city centre of Newcastle but can also
be inspirational for other gender-sensitive planning.
For example, some derelict or empty buildings in the city can be transformed into creative spaces, offering
affordable workshops and atelier spaces for the inhabitants. To have more independent affordable shops to provide
a diverse shopping experience. Meanwhile, more shops should have awnings for people to hide during rainy
weather. Other improvements that can be made include more toilets, benches and wheelchair-accessible streets
to address the needs of women, the elderly and disabled people. These planning strategies were further visualised
using both analog and digital representations, as shown in Figure 3, which offered glimpses of future scenarios
of incorporating gender-inclusive design in Newcastle City Centre.
Figure 4. The group discussion during the final plenary session
Source: unknown.
Conclusions
The goal of the research is to find out – in an exemplary way – how the collective knowledge of a neighbourhood can
be tapped and learned from gender walks in the city. This is based on the hypothesis that this collective knowledge
exists and that it is of significant value to a successful planning and design process. Anderson refers to it as collaborative
knowledge, which is generated as a collage through the walk. (Anderson 2014) This suggests that a collective
knowledge consists of many differing viewpoints, which allows an investigation of the complexity of the topic directly
and speaks strongly for the method, but also asks for a clear evaluation of the findings.
The concept of flaneur and flaneuse gave importance to the aesthetics of city life. As noted before, the flaneuse
embodies the city differently from the flaneur. Through the gendered lens, it is possible to design a city for the
modern flaneuse. One of the aspects is integrating scenery with a degree of liveness in the streets, providing a safe
space for the flaneuse to see and be seen. For example, one female participant mentioned having more greeneries
on Northumberland Street to replace the concrete space will make her want to stay there more. “… I’d love to see
more trees in here. I always feel like I’m passing by the street instead of enjoying it…”. Women usually see greater
aesthetic value in green spaces than men and had higher self-reported well-being associated with the urban green
spaces (Ode Sang et al. 2016). Wider sidewalks, well-lit urban paths and streets, shopping complexes designed
with the hectic pace of families in mind, active and gorgeous shop front and window displays – these keywords
are frequently mentioned by female participants during both the gender walk and post-walk discussions, these
show some of the features that may make a city better equipped to fulfil the distinctive demands of its female
population. The survey led the city to re-evaluate its long-term approach to the transformation programme – CCPT
to make it more gender-inclusive.
574 Jiayi Jin, Nadia Bertolino, Kexin Huang
Suggestions for Future Research
This research has shown that gender walks have the potential to identify both positive and negative socio-spatial
impacts and make them visible for drawing the analysis in a collective manner to understand urban space and civil
realities at the same time. Therefore, gender walks could become a valuable addition to the tools of urban planning
as a refreshed turn on common participation practices.
For delivering a successful gender walk, we learned that, firstly, the division into different groups proves to make
the organisation of the walk much easier and helps to deal with different levels of confidence among the
participants of the walk. It also produces very distinct findings which are useful for gaining a broad image of the
urban neighbourhood. In the meanwhile, the authors found the smaller elements of diversity, such as gender or
education background, also positively sparked the discussions during the walk and post-walk sessions. Secondly,
the amount of information coming through the walk is so enormous that the voice records are absolutely necessary
to keep an overview of them during the process of analysis of the findings. Multiple revisits of the material offer
support for considering the findings as holistic as possible. Last but not the least, the visual-based, co-creation
session at the end proved to be successful, the design proposals further processed the findings during the walk,
and turn into a valuable visual documentation for drawing out successful urban planning strategies. However,
design responses cannot be based solely on the information of the walk, additional field research and knowledge
about gender-sensitive design and the current plans on CCPT help to find fitting answers.
For developing and delivering future gender walks, it would be highly recommended to have multiple sets
of gender walks with a wider range of participants, organised and analysed by different interdisciplinary teams,
more extensive analysis through qualitative content analysis would also be helpful for the process of bringing the
findings of the walk to a successful urban design proposal, or a set of strategies. The results should also
be compared with other proposals/planning visions for the neighbourhood. A juxtaposition of approach, outcome
and evaluation of their gender sensitivity could tell more about the role that gender walk methodology could and
should plan in urban planning and design.
Acknowledgements
This research was supported by Northumbria Seed Fund 2022. We thank our colleagues from the Department of Architecture
and Built Environment who provided insight and expertise that greatly assisted the research. We would also like to show our
gratitude to all the participants in gender walks and following workshops for sharing their insights and experiences with us.
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