Grab your beverage and snack of choice and meet us online for the next WISE Media Club, Gender Bias and Urban Design: Planning for a Safer City. (*Note: Space is limited to preserve a participation-based discussion format. Please notify us 24-hours in advance if you will be unable to attend.)

From combatting severe weather to reducing carbon emissions, city planning requires a necessary shift to address the impacts of climate change. This shift is an opportunity to rethink how we design our cities – and who we are designing them for. Understanding how certain elements of urban design disparately impact perceived safety among genders – such as green open space, walkways, or bike lanes – can act to inform climate policy & urban planning and develop cityscapes used and valued by all residents.

To start this community conversation, we will be discussing content about gender differences in perceived safety & urban design. These resources will contribute to a broader discussion about the challenges and solutions for communicating and using this data effectively in sustainable city planning, featuring a Q+A session with authors of the Leading Cities Walk with Women report, Shagun Sethi and Juliana Vélez-Duque.

BE-Ex staff will kick off the conversation and help to facilitate an interactive discussion among attendees. We look forward to hearing from you– please come prepared to share thoughts on the following items:

1. “Walk With Women – Gendered Perceptions of Safety in Urban Spaces” by Leading Cities fellows, Shagun Sethi and Juliana Vélez-Duque.
a. Watch (2 mins) – Webinar teaser video of the Walk With Women report
b. Read (3 mins) – Op-Ed, Cities Today: Addressing Unequal Access to Safety in Cities.

Safety is a perception that influences how people move throughout a space. A recent report on the gendered perceptions of safety in cities highlights the restricted access women experience in cities designed without safety considerations, and the need to consider safety in future urban planning.

2. Listen (0:00-8:00 mins; full episode 32 minutes) – 99% Invisible podcast episode, “Invisible Women.”

Differences in male and female travel patterns highlight design flaws in city planning and failure to collect data from women, in this podcast episode featuring Caroline Criado Perez, author of “Invisible Women: Data Bias in a World Designed for Men.”

The “WISE Media Club” was developed in March 2020 as a creative way to keep the WISE (Women in Sustainability & Energy) community spirit alive and to facilitate remote interaction during this time of social distancing. This recurring, monthly media club will cover female-developed podcasts, videos, and articles that touch on climate action, the built environment, and new challenges and opportunities created by the COVID pandemic. We’re excited to launch this new platform and look forward to seeing and hearing from the community.