Glasgow becomes first UK city to adopt feminist town planning

Glasgow has become the first city in the UK to adopt a ‘feminist town planning approach’ in a bid to make Glasgow work for women.

Author: Natalie GoodwinPublished 27th Oct 2022

Glasgow has become the first city in the UK to adopt a ‘feminist town planning approach’ in a bid to make Glasgow work for women.

At Glasgow City Council, councillors backed a motion from Green Councillor Holly Bruce which will see Scotland’s largest city making women central to “all aspects of planning, public realm design, policy development and budgets”.

Light the Way campaign

It builds on the work of our Light the Way campaign, which has been calling on Glasgow City Council to introduce safety lighting in parks in order to make them safer for women and other minority groups at night.

Feminist town planning centres the needs and perspectives of women in decisions around infrastructure and design of public spaces. Changes to the city’s infrastructure could include wider pavements to accommodate buggies, more lighting in parks, and safer active travel routes.

“For too long, our streets, parks and buildings have been designed by men."

Councillor Holly Bruce who brought the motion, and also spoke at our rally in Kelvingrove Park, said: “Women, and those of marginalised genders, have a right to the city, have a right to not only to exist but to flourish in its environment.”

“I’m delighted that our motion received unanimous support from across the chamber today and it’s so exciting to consider how much better Glasgow can become with a feminist approach to designing our city.

“For too long, our streets, parks and buildings have been designed by men. The apparently ‘gender-neutral’ approach that we’ve used for centuries has meant that the male perspective has become the default. These shortcomings have often been unintended, and are an obvious consequence of having too few women in the rooms where decisions are made.”

Glasgow becomes first UK city to adopt feminist town planning

Light the Way campaign

“For too long, our streets, parks and buildings have been designed by men."

Kelvingrove Park Demonstration

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