The alarm goes off at 6.30 am. Selene prepares breakfast, gets the children ready and leaves home before 8. She drops the youngest at nursery, the eldest at school, runs errands, then takes public transport to work because parking in the city centre is both scarce and expensive. In the evening she retraces the route in reverse, stopping at her elderly mother-in-law’s with groceries.
It is a routine repeated every day, all year long… by Selene and by millions of women around the world.
Women still carry most care responsibilities, yet cities remain organised around linear home-to-work commutes rather than the fragmented routes of daily care. Work in Chicago has helped map these issues within specific neighbourhoods, but this reflects a wider challenge that cities around the world can learn from.
Planning from a female perspective means imagining urban spaces where different needs and rhythms are recognised and connected. More broadly, it means building places attentive to the experiences of all citizens who actually inhabit the city.
Looking at the city through women’s everyday lives changes what planners see: care, safety, access and time all become central. Studies based on mobile tracking data reinforce longstanding ideas showing that women’s movements are typically more fragmented because of unpaid domestic labour and caregiving. This is known as “trip chaining”.
Women are more likely to make several linked trips in one journey: taking a child to school; travelling to work; shopping; visiting a relative; or accessing services.
What does it mean to plan a city from a female perspective?
Three issues stand out: planning around care, making mobility systems reflect real daily journeys, and designing safer public spaces.
Planning around care
Part of the problem is whose experience counts in planning. According to the OECD, women remain heavily underrepresented in leadership positions accross member countries. With less female influence over large-scale urban strategies, housing, education, sustainability and access to public spaces have often been treated as secondary concerns. According to UN Women, only 44.2% of the global urban population has convenient access to open public spaces.
“A woman urban planner might notice – especially if she is a mother or cares for elderly parents – that many public and service spaces are poorly equipped to support care work or simplify daily life. In this approach, the city becomes a place of possibility.”
Leslie Kern, professor at Mount Allison University and author of Sex and the Revitalized City.
Making mobility systems reflect real daily journeys
Change is possible. One of the most cited examples is Seestadt Adpern in Vienna, where feminist urbanist Eva Kail developed a planning model grounded in listening to women and residents about their concerns and daily routines.
This means planning homes that support care, locating childcare near where people live, and designing public transport around the journeys people actually make. A similar approach can be seen in Bogotá’s care districts, which concentrate childcare, healthcare, social services and laundries within neighbourhood systems accessible within a 15-minute walk or public transport ride.
Designing safer public spaces
But access is not only about distance or transport links. A route, square or station only works if people feel safe using it. The problem is that urban environments continue to favour able-bodied men, overlooking diverse needs and exposing others to greater risk.
Gender is a key factor linked to feelings of insecurity in public space. Surveys across 27 US cities show women consistently reporting lower levels of safety than men. In some contexts, 59% of women feel unsafe walking at night, compared with 31% of men.
Safer streets are not only about policing. They are also about urban design – lighting, active ground floors, reliable transport and public spaces where people feel welcome throughout the day.
Public spaces shaped through participatory processes are perceived as safer less because of surveillance and more because of the visible presence of women. Urban itineraries are crucial to enabling this: the city is understood by walking through it, through continuity between streets, squares and buildings experienced over time rather than as isolated objects on a plan.
It’s time to rethink urban planning – and give women a stronger role in shaping the places they use every day. Planning from a female perspective means connecting care, mobility, public space and safety, so that cities become safer, more accessible and more inclusive for everyone.
To learn more about the OECD’s work on related topics, read Transforming Places and Social economy and social innovation.
Elena Dallorso is a journalist and editor with extensive experience in publishing, lifestyle, and communications, she works as Senior Editor for AD Italia (Condé Nast), where she coordinates the editorial team and oversees copy and editorial projects. She has written for numerous publications (including Vogue, Vanity Fair, IL del Sole24ore, Repubblica, La Stampa, Marie Claire, and Donna Moderna), worked as a correspondent for CNTraveller, conceived special editorial features, and launched new projects such as Meridiani Le Grandi Vie. Alongside her journalistic work, she has translated fiction from Spanish and English, and written novels (Feltrinelli), podcasts, and content.