Everyday life: a lens to better shape urban form
Belen Iturralde is an urban geographer committed to designing cities that foster equity and care for each other and the environment. Exploring creative approaches to urban policy making ‘from below’ is a major motivation for her. Belen is a committee member of Women in Urbanism Aotearoa and has experience working as an urban researcher, an educator, and a designer and facilitator of engagement processes related to urban regeneration. Belen holds a degree in Development and Environmental Studies from Victoria University of Wellington and a master’s degree in Urban Studies from the University of Vienna and Vrije University of Brussel. This article was originally published by UDINZ in March 2023.
Imagine a city seriously capable of looking after its inhabitants. One that allows them to build meaningful relationships and care for each other. A city that supports equitable living arrangements, where the physical environment encourages co-responsibility, and does not exclude people or put them in boxes. The ideal is an urban planning culture that acknowledges the interconnectedness of life and designs cities that support all spheres of activities, without bowing to the commodified ones. A place where democratic policymaking creates room for a plurality of voices and stories to shine through. culture has managed to transform all women, children, elderly people, and those not driving on the road into ‘vulnerable groups’. Such an understanding of vulnerability curtails our possibility of using and enjoying public space and maintains cars as the Modulor king.
This is not a utopian game of wonder. We must imagine different stories and realities if we are to survive and thrive as communities now and into the future. The recent events here in NZ have emphasised the intrinsic value of that localised community connectedness. We must seriously ask ourselves: what kind of world do we want to live in? And how can our cities survive into the future and adequately sustain people’s lives?
Man on park bench. Photo Credit: Bruno Martins, Unsplash.
Firstly, let us consider a few fundamentals of the mainstream urban paradigm – We need to know what we are dealing with here. In the twentieth century, urban planners followed a technocratic approach (designing for, rather than with relevant user groups) and were guided by the recommendations of the Athens Charter. This charter separated the city into four monofunctional areas: dwelling, work, recreation, and transportation. Large distances between residential areas and the workplace led to a dependency on private motorized vehicles. The increase in car ownership translated in agglomeration issues and inspired an approach to urban planning that is car-centred and aimed at improving time efficiency – but predominately for one type of journey and day.
Planning efforts under this approach focused on a standard user, namely, ‘the Modulor’. The Modulor is described by Zaida Muxí and Josep María Montaner as a middle-aged man (with emphasis on gender, not sex), in good physical condition, who works Monday to Friday in stable and well-paid employment, owns a car and has a wife who takes care of domestic duties. The life experiences of Modulor men have traditionally been used to explain the lived realities of all citizens. This planning culture has managed to transform all women, children, elderly people, and those not driving on the road into ‘vulnerable groups’. Such an understanding of vulnerability curtails our possibility of using and enjoying public space and maintains cars as the Modulor king.
Mother and children on bicycles. Photo Credit: Mark Stosberg. Unsplash.
Since then, we’ve been reproducing urban centres that discriminate against and undermine equal opportunities for women in their diversity, often as caregivers, and care receivers – and other social groups too. Many women report negative perceptions of safety in public space, they are not provided with basic infrastructure such as public toilets or breastfeeding stations, or other facilities required to carry out their responsibilities as carers. All of this, amidst built environments and transport networks and services planned to serve the economically productive sphere (e.g., disavowing care-related journeys, which are often chained and involve traveling off-peak). Indeed, GDP is a foundation stone of policy which generally ignores discretionary or voluntary work, without which our society would not function.
To repair our broken cities and make them efficient and inclusive for all, we must integrate the realities of those who have been traditionally left out of urban decision-making. Feminist theory and practice can guide us in this endeavour by providing mechanisms that unlock the diversity of voices and stories in urban processes.
What kind of urban planning and policymaking processes will ensure that our urban form supports lives worth living?
A feminist perspective to urbanism aims to shape better ways of living. It is concerned with debunking ‘false neutrality’ – i.e., removing the Modulor as the standard subject of urban planning – and including the diversity of life in city making. It is about exposing the multiple barriers that impede different social groups’ access to decent housing, public and social services, mobility options, and quality public and green urban areas and result in inequalities.
Feminist urbanism transversally incorporates attention to perceptions of safety into all interventions. Importantly, this approach to urban planning contributes towards socially and ecologically just ways of existing in this world because it demands a transformation of urban planning cultures, processes, strategies, and interventions, which in turn generates the conditions for meaningful participation in society of women and non-hegemonic groups.
City neighborhood. Photo Credit: Fons Heinjsbroek, Unsplash.
Below, I outline three key ideas at the core of this approach.
1. A focus on everyday life
Everyday life includes those activities people carry out to satisfy their needs in different spheres of life. According to Spanish urban planning cooperative Col·lectiu Punt 6, everyday life is about the productive activities related to the production of goods and services and the actions related to our own personal and intellectual development (e.g., socialising, sports, free time, and hobbies). Everyday life also includes actions in relation to community goals and values and political participation. Lastly, everyday life’s reproductive sphere’ is about domestic activities and care. All these daily activities take place in a continuum of time and a specific place.
Urban planning that puts everyday life at the centre of the design process shapes cities to support the activities belonging to all four spheres, not just the economically productive one. Most importantly, recognising the centrality of the activities related to the reproductive sphere is crucial, as without them, human life cannot continue and the labour forces required for industry and the economy would not exist. Here’s an Austrian city that has been designed to do this.
2. Public spaces that are accessible, diverse, healthy, and safe
Accessible and diverse public places, according to the Col·lectiu Punt 6, are those that reflect the different needs, rhythms, bodies, health conditions, and economic situations of the public.
Amaia Pérez Orozco maintains that healthy urban environments are dependent on urban policies and interventions guided by the principles of human vulnerability (we need care), interdependence (we depend on others), and ecodependence (we depend on the natural environment). And these kinds of safe places, as Jane Jacobs would argue, are those that embrace the principles of diversity, vitality, and autonomy.
By habitually moving around our neighbourhoods, we collect knowledge, bodily experiences, and memories that contribute to our sense of belonging and attachment. This means that we become experts in our neighbourhood’s challenges and opportunities, from our own individual perspective. Understanding what accessibility, diversity, health, and safety means in one specific context, therefore, requires involving local people, particularly women and non-hegemonic groups, in the planning and design processes. As an example understanding diverse perceptions and experiences, here is an article that explores women’s cycling in a New Zealand city.
3. Processes that incorporate a diversity of voices and stories
Lastly, to ensure that the urban form supports lives worth living and thriving communities we must make sure that the needs, expectations, and desires of the diversity of people are recognised and actively represented. Urban planners and designers can benefit from feminist participatory methodologies provide tools that are situated in context, creative in their design, attentive to diverse experiences and needs and reflexive and transformative of oppressive power relations. The box below describes some tools, and and you can find these and more in the Woman Working toolbox by Col-lectiua Punt 6. UN Habitat has also developed an excellent guide named HerCity to include girls in urban planning.
Thank you to UDINZ for granting the permission to share this article.