The Shared City

A place where an individual can live, travel and co-exist with others seamlessly is the goal of a shared city. Citizens should

not experience unfair circumstances in the place they reside due to their sex, gender or societal factors. Although this thesis placed a large emphasis on the inequalities women experience in public transit settings, there are many scenarios where women are not accounted for in the planning process. As mentioned before in the precedent study of Vienna, municipalities have to start making changes to areas such as housing, social “Cities have the capability of providing something for everybody, only because, and only when, they are created by everybody

Jacobs (1993) The Death and Life of Great American Cities

spaces, playgrounds and park design. There are many steps in the planning process of a city and gender inclusive public transit is only the start to create a shared city. The goal of this thesis is to have municipalities, transport planners, landscape architects and other experts changing their traditional planning methods to account for gender sensitive planning practices.

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Figure 3.1 A rendering of a commercial public space (Westhollow Society, n.d.)

Cities have the capability of providing something for everybody, only because, and only when, they are created by everybody.”

Jacobs (1993) The Death and Life of Great American Cities

Creating a shared city is up to all of us. We have to collectively want change

for the betterment of our societies. If municipalities and landscape architects can adopt gender sensitive planning practices it will benefit the lives of all citizens. We

need to adapt our male-biased traditions and have progressive conversations about representing women in our communities. There needs to be greater diversity and

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representation in the people designing our cities so that we can increase people’s quality of life. Women are often

overlooked or forgotten because there is an assumption that women have the same needs as men. By tossing this assumption and taking the specific considerations of women into account, city planners have an opportunity to make huge changes that will lead to the betterment of our society as a whole. Change can only happen when people acknowledge the issue and strive to be better.