PLAN30003 Final report

Planning Social Research Workshop (PLAN30003) Research Report Completed on 11/06/2020 Pages: 14 | Word count: 1650

Cover photo – Melbourne City (Raval, 2019)

Student name: Manasi Chopdekar Student ID: 935401 Tutor: Judy Bush

CONTENTS 1.

1.1.

1.2.

1.3.

1.4.

Introduction Planning problem and research gap Research question Research methodology Ethical considerations

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2.

2.1.

Preliminary research Increasing women participation in decision-making Case study 1 – METRAC, Toronto Adopting gender mainstreaming Case study 2 – Gender mainstreaming in Vienna

…5 …6 …6 …7 …7

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3.1.

3.2.

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Discussion Analysis of existing actions taken by Melbourne city municipality Possible responses for increasing women’s safety in Melbourne city Benefits of suggested initiatives

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4.1.

Conclusion Reflections and research limitations

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5.

References

…11-14

2.2.

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Fig. 1. – Melbourne CBD – active street and public transport network (Alarcon, 2019)

INTRODUCTION

Known for its vibrant night-life (Nightlife city guide 2018), Melbourne city municipality, governed by Melbourne City Council, lies at the heart of Greater Melbourne and comprises its CBD (see Fig. 1) and innermost suburbs like Carlton, Parkville and Docklands (City of Melbourne, 2019, pg. 2). While its council places high priority on “preventing crime, violence and injury” (City of Melbourne, 2019, pg. 4), crime rates at the city center remain the highest among all other cities in the state of Victoria, with active public spaces like transportation stops (Tran 2017), footpaths and laneways regarded as most unsafe by women, particularly at night (Crime Statistics Agency, 2019).

Planning problem and research gap Initial research into this issue’s causative factors has pointed to the lack of gendersensitive urban design as most contributing to affecting the sense of real and perceived dangers that women face in the public realm (The World Bank 2020, pg. 8). Melbourne city municipality currently follows a gender-neutral approach to planning (Brown, Wardale and Pojani 2018) and little research has been conducted into the role of gendersensitive urban design for women’s safety specifically in Melbourne city.

Research question How can gender-sensitive urban planning be enforced in Melbourne city municipality to increase women’s safety in public city spaces?

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This report researches into the ways gender-sensitive urban planning can be enforced in Melbourne city municipality to increase women’s safety in public city spaces, because while the municipality has acknowledged the need for gender-sensitivity in its planning approach, the city’s planning implementations remain gender-neutral.

Research methodology In order to understand why a gender-neutral urban design approach can no longer work for Melbourne city municipality this report will undertake a qualitative investigation of academic books and journal articles, and use news reports and interview articles to understand how a gender-sensitive approach can be embedded in the planning process. It will then analyze case studies from Toronto and Vienna to study the practicality of the key planning principles suggested from conducted academic research. These data sources will together inform how successful implementation of gender-sensitive design can be applied to Melbourne city municipality.

Academic theory research

Case study Precedent analysis

Possible solutions for Melbourne city

Ethical considerations This report acknowledges ethical considerations while conducting and presenting research, including being aware of the implications of the research presentation on the broader research community and the issue itself, being mindful about the way sensitive information is interpreted and conveyed in this report, and addressing privacy and access rights concerns related to using news and article sources that may narrate personal experiences of women’s safety (Commonwealth of Australia 2018, pg. 36).

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PRELIMINARY RESEARCH Gender-sensitive urban design is a wide-ranging topic that traverses a range of issues, mostly through the broader lens of men-women divide in their experience of the city, but it can also involve looking at issues through the lens of differences in specific demographics within a particular gender’s population, such as ethnicity, race, and religion (Sassen 2016). This report will use the first lens in analyzing the issue of women’s safety because Melbourne city municipality’s main planning problem is its gender-neutral planning approach.

Academic theory research

Case study Precedent analysis

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Increasing women participation in decision-making As Sassen highlights, one important way to shift planning processes from genderneutral to gender-sensitive urban design, is to provide the means for vulnerable women population to “advocate for themselves” (Sassen 2016). This includes increasing women participation and representation in policy and decision-making, thereby enabling them to be able to voice their specific concerns and perspectives on a platform where they have the power to make a difference (European Partnership for Democracy 2019, pg. 1). Other participatory approaches include indirect and consultative methods such as surveys, interviews, audit tools, community meetings and discussions including workshops that can be used to inform the planning process in its early stages in order for public space design to be inclusive in its approach (Quium & Moon 2003, pg. 9).

Case study 1 Metropolitan Action Committee on Public Violence Against Women and Children (METRAC) in Toronto, Ontario.

A successful case of implementing participatory approach can be observed in the work of Toronto’s Metropolitan Action Committee on Public Violence Against Women and Children (METRAC) which aims to improve women’s safety “through education, research and policy” (METRAC 2020).

Officially founded in 1984, METRAC was formed initially by a group of women (see Fig. 2) as a response to the then heightening cases of sexual assaults and murders of women.

Fig. 2 – METRAC founders and main supporters (METRAC, 2020)

Since then, this committee has collaborated with the Metropolitan Toronto Board of Commissioners of Police and has initiated legislations, participated in consultation programs and launched campaigns and acts such as Respect in Action (ReAct) in order to alleviate the crime rates against women in their city (METRAC 2020). Today Toronto is one of the safest cities in the world in terms of genderrelated crime (Jones 2019) and this shows that having a gendered approach to planning and decision-making, facilitated by women participation, has worked successfully in alleviating crime in this city.

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Adopting gender mainstreaming Another way to embed gender-sensitive approach into urban planning is to adopt gender-mainstreaming in academic level research and teaching, and urban design competitions. This would increase awareness and interest in mainstream gender issues at the emerging planners’ level, promote gender equality in terms of representation in the planning field and provide more informed research into gender-specific planning topics (Palmen, Arroyo, Müller, Reidl, Caprile & Unger 2019, pg. 1).

Case study 2 Gender mainstreaming in the city of Vienna, Austria This has been implemented successfully in the city of Vienna, where gender is now part of public policy, and solutions for issues like gendered-crime are informed by the specific needs of women who use those spaces (Foran 2013). Gender mainstreaming in Vienna emerged in 1991 with a photo exhibition titled ‘Who Owns Public Space -- Women’s Everyday Life in the City’ from which safety was identified as a key issue (Barrett 2013).

Fig. 3 – Shared space in Mariahilf district, Vienna (Rijkenberg 2015)

Since then, the city has held gender-sensitive design competitions at academic and industry levels (Urban Development Vienna 2013, pg. 57) and facilitated more than 60 projects based on gender mainstreaming, including Mariahilf (see Fig. 3) , its pilot gender-sensitive planned district (Chalaby 2017). Today Vienna is ranked first in the list of top ten livable cities in the world (ABC news 2018) and ranked sixth in the list for ‘personal safety’ among all other cities in the world (Brownlow 2020). This shows the success of gender mainstreaming in reducing crime rates in Vienna.

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DISCUSSION The preliminary research conducted shows that in order to embed gender-sensitivity in urban design and planning to create safer spaces for women, women need to “plan with the city and not be planned for” (Travers, Shaw & McCleery 2017).

Melbourne city municipality needs to incorporate this lesson into its initiatives to reduce crime rates against women.

Possible solutions for Melbourne city

Melbourne city’s initiatives to improve women’s safety Melbourne city’s shift from traditional to LED lighting was made in efforts to increase energy efficiency, but it has also helped in creating a safer atmosphere for women (See Fig. 4). Its ‘Free to Be’ program launched in 2016 underpins its efforts into gathering data on places that women feel unsafe in through crowd-mapping (Kalms 2019). This gives women a platform to voice their concerns and aides in finding built environment causal patterns among the different places that are pinned on the map (Ogeto 2018, pg. 2) – places that may otherwise have gone unnoticed because a large proportion of sexual assault and harassment crimes go unreported (Tarczon & Quadara 2012). However, these maps need to be acknowledged and used by general public as well as professionals in the planning industry, or it could lead to uninformed decision making from policy-makers (Ogeto 2018, pg. 4).

Suggested solution 1 Taking inspiration from Toronto’s case study, facilitate collaboration between grassroots initiatives by women, official task forces and planning professionals to increase women participation in planning and decision-making.

Implementation in progress!

Considerable progress into achieving this recommendation has already been made.

Melbourne city’s ‘Preventing violence against women strategy 2013-16’ has prioritized this as a guiding principle for preventing crime against women (City of Melbourne 2013). Non-profit organizations like Women’s Planning Network (WPN), having been integrated into the Planning Institute of Australia, provide women planners with senior positions in the planning profession (Planning Institute of Australia 2020). Their unique perspectives as women users of public city-spaces can serve to better inform and influence policy decisions and other responses for gendered crime issues.

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Suggested solution 2 Taking inspiration from Vienna’s case study, adopt gender mainstreaming into Melbourne city’s planning guidelines and incorporate it into academic level teaching.

The city’s current gender-neutral planning approach can be observed, for example, in Victoria’s Safer Design Guidelines (The State of Victoria Department of Sustainability and Environment 2005, pg. 32-33) for open spaces and parks. These guidelines address general safety concerns and do not alleviate the issue of criminal conduct against women. This is evident in the current statistics of gendered crime against women in the city (Australian Bureau of Statistics 2018, pg. 23), along with recent reports of sexual assault and murder of women in inner-city Melbourne parks (Kalms 2019).

Possible solutions for Melbourne city

In this case, enabling a platform for women to Fig. 4 – Street lighting upgrade in Melbourne city (City of convey their concerns may not be enough (Kalms Melbourne 2020) 2019). As could be seen in the case study of Vienna, gender mainstreaming needs to be incorporated into Melbourne city’s planning guidelines in order to cater specifically to women’s safety and comfort in public city spaces. This initiative could be implemented starting from the academic level, where gendersensitivity would be addressed and enforced into course projects for aspiring planners.

This would not only raise awareness among the city’s youth planners but would one day establish gender-sensitivity in planning as a norm.

Benefits of suggested solutions These recommendations can together aid in increasing gender-sensitive data collection and understanding the challenges faced by women in cities (United Nations Human Settlements Programme 2012, pg. 34), and thereby bring about substantial changes in planning policies for women’s safety (Falú & Sassen 2018) including producing more informed infrastructural changes, such as having efficient lighting (see Fig. 4) and CCTV distribution, appropriate display of advertising, and increasing reliability of public transport. Its long-term benefits include raising the overall health and well-being of the city’s women population (United Nations Human Settlements Programme 2012, pg. 34).

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CONCLUSION Melbourne city municipality is constantly adapting to accommodate its growing population. It is essential to ensure that the spaces that are designed for the city’s present and future population are inclusive of all its users. Therefore, women need to play an active role in planning and policy-making, contributing their experiences and ideas, as the success stories of Vienna and Toronto have demonstrated. With its own established initiatives, along with the ones recommended in this report for incorporating gendered approach into planning processes, Melbourne city municipality can create safe and inclusive spaces for its women population.

Reflections and research limitations When analyzing criminal conduct against women and its relation to the built environment, it is important to collect and analyze data based on the duration of crime and the distinct impacts of day-time and night-time city planning on crime rates. This would require further research and support from Melbourne city municipality’s policymakers to collect and re-analyze information from these data sources.

While it promotes a more participatory approach to planning, the scope of this report’s research was limited to online news reports, government reports, articles and academic sources like books and journals. Conducting field observations, including semi-structured interviews and surveys would facilitate a more informed analysis of the urban issue.

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REFERENCES ABC news. (2018, Aug 14). Melbourne loses most liveable city title to Vienna in Economist Intelligence Unit rankings. ABC news. Retrieved from https://www.abc.net.au/news/201808-14/melbourne-loses-most-liveable-city-title-to-vienna/10117338 Australian Bureau of Statistics. (2018). Gender Indicators, Australia, Sep 2018: Safety and Justice. Retrieved from https://www.5050foundation.edu.au/assets/reports/documents/ABS-Gender-IndicatorsAustralia-Sep-2018.pdf Barrett, J. (2013). “Who owns Public Space – Women’s Everyday Life in the City”. Retrieved from https://remixedcity.wordpress.com/2013/09/20/who-owns-public-space-womenseveryday-life-in-thecity/#:~:text=Mainstreaming%20got%20off%20the%20ground,lives%20in%20the%20Au strian%20capital.

Brown, K., Wardale, D., & Pojani, D. (2018, Apr 18). Sexism and the city: how urban planning has failed women. Architecture Media. Retrieved from https://architectureau.com/articles/sexism-and-the-city-how-urban-planninghas-failedwomen/ Brownlow, M. (2020). How safe is Vienna to visit? Retrieved from https://www.visitingvienna.com/visitorinfo/safety/ Chalaby, O. (2017, Aug 24). How Vienna designed a city for women. Apolitical: Cities transport and infrastructure. Retrieved from https://apolitical.co/en/solution_article/vienna-designed-city-women City of Melbourne. (2013). Preventing Violence Against Women Strategy 2013-16. Retrieved from https://www.melbourne.vic.gov.au/community/health-support-services/genderequality/Pages/preventing-violence-against-women-strategy-2013-16.aspx City of Melbourne. (2019). City of Melbourne Annual Report 2018-2019. Retrieved from https://www.melbourne.vic.gov.au/about-council/ourperformance/Pages/annualreport.aspx Commonwealth of Australia. (2018). National Statement on Ethical Conduct in Human Research 2007 (Updated 2018). Commonwealth of Australia, Canberra: The National Health and Medical Research Council, the Australian Research Council and Universities Australia.

Retrieved from https://www.nhmrc.gov.au/research-policy/ethics/national-statementethical-conduct-human-research Crime Statistics Agency. (2019). Criminal Incidents – Melbourne: Top 5 location types [Tabular data]. Retrieved from https://www.crimestatistics.vic.gov.au/explore-crime-bylocation

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REFERENCES (cont.)

European Partnership for Democracy. (2019). Women in Policy-Making. Retrieved from http://epd.eu/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/Factsheet-Women-In-Policy-Making.pdf Falú, A. & Sassen, S. (2018, Jan 11). Women and the city: It’s time to rethink urban planning from a gender-based perspective. Scroll.in. Retrieved from https://scroll.in/article/864449/women-and-the-city-its-time-to-rethink-urban-planningfrom-a-gender-based-perspective Foran, C. (2013). How to Design a City for Women. Retrieved from https://www.citylab.com/transportation/2013/09/how-design-city-women/6739/ Jones, A.M. (2019, Aug 31). Toronto is the sixth safest city in the world: report. CTV News.

Retrieved from https://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/toronto-is-the-sixth-safest-city-in-theworld-report-1.4573536 Kalms, N. (2019, May 27). To design safer parks for women, city planners must listen to their stories. The Conversation. Retrieved from https://theconversation.com/to-design-saferparks-for-women-city-planners-must-listen-to-their-stories-98317 METRAC. (2020). History. Retrieved from https://www.metrac.org/about/history/ METRAC. (2020). METRAC Presents: The Improved Ontario Women’s Justice Network.

Retrieved from https://www.metrac.org/?doing_wp_cron=1591700371.5554909706115722656250 Nightlife city guide. (2018). Melbourne: Nightlife and clubs. Retrieved from http://www.nightlife-cityguide.com/en/guide-nightlife/nightlife-melbourne-nightlifenightclubs-discos/ Ogeto, F.O. (2018). Crime mapping as a tool in crime analysis for crime management.

International Journal of Phytoremediation, 1-7. Retrieved from https://www.researchgate.net/publication/322600425_crime_mapping_as_a_tool_in_crime_ analysis_for_crime_management Palmen, R., Arroyo, l., Müller, J., Reidl, S., Caprile, M. & Unger, M. (2019). Integrating the gender dimension in teaching, research content & knowledge and technology transfer: Validating the EFFORTI evaluation framework through three case studies in Europe.

Evaluation and Program Planning 79, 1-10. doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.evalprogplan.2019.101751 Planning Institute of Australia. (2020). Women's Planning Network. Retrieved from https://www.planning.org.au/viccontent/wpn

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REFERENCES (cont.)

Quium, A.S.M. & Moon, J.R. (2003). A guide to the application of public participation in planning and policy formulation towards sustainable transport development. Retrieved from UNESCAP: https://www.unescap.org/sites/default/files/pub_2308_0.pdf Sassen, S. (2016). Built Gendering. Harvard Design Magazine, 41. Retrieved from http://www.harvarddesignmagazine.org/issues/41/built-gendering Tarczon, C. & Quadara, A. (2012). The nature and extent of sexual assault and abuse in Australia. Australian Centre for the Study of Sexual Assault (ACSSA) Resource Sheet (5).

Retrieved from https://aifs.gov.au/publications/archived/3842 The State of Victoria Department of Sustainability and Environment. (2005). Safer Design Guidelines for Victoria. Retrieved from https://www.planning.vic.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0014/4631/Safer_Design_Guidelines. pdf The World Bank. (2020). Handbook for Gender-Inclusive Urban Planning Design. Washington DC, USA: World Bank Publications. Retrieved from https://www.worldbank.org/en/topic/urbandevelopment/publication/handbook-for-genderinclusive-urban-planning-and-design Tran, D. (2017, Aug 10). Melbourne's train stations rated for safety as women reveal public transport fears. ABC news. Retrieved from https://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-08-10/flindersstreet-station-topslist-of-stations-women-feel-unsafe/8792626 Travers, K., Shaw, M. & McCleery K. (2017, Mar 9). Making Cities Safer for Women and Girls, Part II. URBANET. Retrieved from https://www.urbanet.info/safe-cities-for-women-and-girlspart-ii/ United Nations Human Settlements Programme. (2012). Gender Issue Guide: Urban Planning and Design. Retrieved from https://smartnet.niua.org/sites/default/files/resources/gender_responsive_urban_planning_a nd_design.pdf Urban Development Vienna. (2013). Manual for Gender Mainstreaming in Urban Planning and Urban Development. Retrieved from https://www.wien.gv.at/stadtentwicklung/studien/pdf/b008358.pdf

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REFERENCES (figures and icons) Cover photo – Raval, K. (2019). Melbourne City [image]. Discover Our New Public Safety Solutions: Portfolio at HxGN LIVE Melbourne. Retrieved from https://blog.hexagonsafetyinfrastructure.com/discover-our-new-public-safety-solutionsportfolio-at-hxgn-live-melbourne/

Fig. 1. Alarcon, A. (2019). The City Circle Tram [image]. Top 10 Free Melbourne Points of Interest.

Retrieved from https://www.tripsavvy.com/free-melbourne-attractions-1464129 Fig. 2. METRAC. (2020). METRAC founders and main supporters. How we started. Retrieved from https://www.metrac.org/about/history/?doing_wp_cron=1591841348.9012041091918945312500 Fig. 3. Rijkenberg, R. (2015). Shared space in Mariahilf district, Vienna. Mariahilfer Strasse: Europe’s longest shared space. Retrieved from https://www.archilovers.com/projects/171288/mariahilfer-strasse.html Fig. 4. City of Melbourne. (2020). Street lighting upgrade in Melbourne city. Street lighting.

Retrieved from https://www.melbourne.vic.gov.au/residents/home-neighbourhood/streetlighting/Pages/street-lighting.aspx

Icons Creative Stall, PK. Academic theory research [icon]. Research. Retrieved from https://thenounproject.com/term/research/129740/ Icons8. Possible solutions for Melbourne city [icon]. Create icons in iOS, Material, Windows, and other design styles. Retrieved from https://icons8.com/icons/set/create Onlinewebfonts. Case study - precedent analysis [icon]. Case Study Free Icon. Retrieved from https://www.onlinewebfonts.com/icon/543478

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