ABSTRACT
The development of urban planning in the European city, with its compact, dense and mixed image, has been described by sociologists as a story of emancipation. The general principle of the European city has been, since the 1990s, interrelated with the concept of short routes, in line both with the objectives of sustainable development and with those of gender-sensitive city where spaces for living and working are ideally coordinated and fully accessible by public transport. Gender planning is therefore something more: it aims not merely to improve the products of planning, but also to change the processes and the structures. Gender planning is thus both an indicator and a key action field involved in the creation of social and spatial justice. Sustainable development is a concept accorded worldwide recognition since the signature of the Rio Agenda of 1992, subsequently adopted by the European Union and its member states as a political guiding principle and legally enshrined as having normative status.
