ABSTRACT
Many of the problems which women encounter in the city of man are the result of a dichotomized public/private view of reality, prevalent within the planning subculture. In order to plan for women, physical divisions between perceived public and private realms manifested in land-use patterns must be dissolved. The nature of land-uses must be reconceptualized, and the likely inter-relationships among them reconsidered, to reflect more realistically the way in which women ‘uze’ urban space (p. 22). In this chapter, I take a more prescriptive stance. First I describe ways in which progressive local authorities have sought to plan differently for women, illustrating this with a range of recent examples. Thus they have acted as zone zappers, disrupting the reproduction over space of gendered dichotomies and roles. Second I discuss ways of reconceptualizing city structure to break down spatial divisions to the advantage of women, by mixing, melling, and making new interconnections between, and clusterings among landuses and activities; thus creating new spaces and possibilities for women. In this process new emphases, foci and zones emerge, centred on activities such as childcare and running a home, thus breaking down the physical/social (spatial/ aspatial) dichotomy in the process, which has so constrained the nature of planning policy. Such activities have previously been relegated to the private zone, or fallen down the gap between the public/private realms, and been seen as other, or marginal and limited, but may yet be reborn as new land-use zones in their own right. Third I consider the legal means of effecting change through the planning system. It seems to me there is considerable intransigence, and ignorance, amongst some planners, but one does not have to wait until such persons change their minds towards, or agree with, women and planning policies in order to implement them, provided one can legally enforce women-benefiting policies through regulatory codes. Last, I suggest more fundamental changes in society. It is much more difficult, and beyond the scope of town planning, to change the patriachal perceptions and related professional cultures which generate dichotomies in the first place, but I believe one can exert positive influence through planning.
