Carolyn Whitzman

Stuck at the Front Door: Gender, Fear of Crime and the Challenge of Creating Safer Space

This paper is in respectful challenge to two streams in urban social geography and planning literatures: the question of how gendered geographies of fear help constitute identities spatially, and the related question of how gendered urban space can be made and remade to be more egalitarian. I argue that the first of these bodies of literature is often trapped in an unhelpful public–private divide, which reflects the inability of mainstream crime prevention to include violence committed within families and households as a central focus of concern. I further argue that the question of how urban space can become more egalitarian needs to be concerned with violence and fear in the private realm as well as the public realm. Although the paper is primarily a review of recent academic and policy-oriented literature, my arguments are illustrated by a research project on how grassroots organizations serving new-arrival women in the outer suburbs of Melbourne and Toronto, as well as their funders, are redefining violence and safer space.

At the Intersection of Invisibilities: Canadian women, homelessness and health outside the ‘big city’

This article explores the concept of ‘invisibility’ in relation to women, homelessness and health in Ontario, Canada. While popular images of homelessness continue to focus on older men with mental illness and/or addictions issues, the proportion of women without secure, affordable shelter continues to rise. The stereotypes of homelessness also have a spatial component, with the incorrect assumption that housing affordability crises are concentrated in the centres of large cities. There is a third aspect to ‘invisibility’: the tendency of the traditional medical model of health care to ignore the interrelated physical and emotional impacts of stress among women who make up the majority of the ‘hidden homeless’. While an increasing number of women are facing loss of their accommodation in suburban, small city and rural settings, this social policy issue remains largely invisible outside the realm of local services struggling to meet womens needs. Interviews with women facing homelessness in Haliburton, Kingston and Oshawa, a rural area, small town and outer suburb, illustrate both experiences of invisibility and possibilities of integrated health services combating this personal and societal invisibility. En la intersección de invisibilidades: mujeres canadienses, la falta de vivienda, y salud afuera de la «ciudad grande» Éste artículo explora el concepto de «invisibilidad» en relación a mujeres, la falta de vivienda y salud en Ontario, Canadá. Mientras que representaciones común de la falta de vivienda continúan enfocar a hombres con enfermos mentales y/o problemas de adicción, las cifras de mujeres sin viviendas seguras y asequibles se acentúan. Los estereotipos de gente sin hogares también tienen un componente espacial, con la suposición equivocado que la crisis de la falta de viviendas asequibles es concentrado en los centros de ciudades grandes. Hay un tercer aspecto de la «invisibilidad»: la tendencia del modelo medico tradicional de la asistencia sanitaria a no tomar en cuenta los entrelazados impactos físicos y emocionales de estrés entre mujeres que constituyen la mayoría de «la gente escondida sin vivienda». Mientras que mujeres, en cifras cada vez mayor, se enfrentan a la perdida de vivienda en los suburbios, ciudades pequeñas, y áreas rurales, la cuestión política social queda principalmente invisible afuera del terreno de servicios locales que luchan para cumplir las necesidades de mujeres. Las entrevistas con mujeres que faltan viviendas en Haliburton (un área rural), Kingston (un pueblito), y Oshawa (un suburbio), demuestran no solo las experiencias de invisibilidad sino las posibilidades de integrar la asistencia de salud para combatir ésta invisibilidad personal y social.

Planning Healthy, Liveable and Sustainable Cities: How Can Indicators Inform Policy?

Creating ‘liveable’ communities that are healthy and sustainable is an aspiration of policymakers in Australia and overseas. Indicators are being used at the national, state and local level to compare the liveability of cities and regions. Yet, there are challenges in the adoption of such indicators. Planning scholars see a challenge in creating indicators that measure something publicly valued, while public health researchers are concerned about scant systemic research on relationships between policies, the built environment, and health and well-being. This article provides an overview of liveability indicators used to date in Australia and internationally. It then outlines the results of consultations with Melbourne-based academics and decision-makers, on how to increase their utility and support the creation of healthy, liveable and sustainable cities.

Creating Child-Friendly High-Rise Environments: Beyond Wastelands and Glasshouses

Melbourne, like many cities around the world, is in the midst of reshaping its central city landscape. However, there are concerns, particularly in Australia, that “contemporary strategic planning has almost become child-blind, with the new higher density centres being built essentially for the childless in mind” (Randolph, 2006, p. 5). The ‘Vertical Living Kids’ research project interviewed children aged 8–12 to elicit their views on local environments. Public housing children had high levels of independent mobility, but low levels of satisfaction with local play spaces. The private housing children, in contrast, had low levels of independent mobility but enjoyed a much greater range of attractions. Based on a typology developed by Kytta (2004), the public housing children are characterised as living in ‘wastelands’ and the private housing children are characterised as living in ‘glasshouses’. The authors suggest urban planning policies that might address both types of environments.

Village ghetto land: myth, social conditions and housing policy in Parkdale, Toronto, 1879-2000

The purpose of this article is to demonstrate how historical narratives such as wealthy “suburb,” declining “slum,” and resurgent “village” can have little basis in the social conditions of the time they purport to represent, yet be used to justify urban policy and planning decisions. In a case study of Parkdale, Toronto, we show how a history of the neighborhood was constructed in the 1970s by using a selective reading of the historic record, and then show how this mythical narrative has recently been used to legitimize the gentrification of the neighborhood. We also construct an alternative narrative of persistent housing diversity in the face of opposition over 125 years, which might justify a different set of local government policies that recognizes the continuity of inexpensive rental housing options and seeks to preserve and enhance these options.

Community Safety Indicators: Are We Measuring What Counts?

Recent reviews of crime prevention practice conclude that the local level of governance is most effective at coordinating various key actors and implementing workable policy. However, the question of how to evaluate effectiveness of these efforts is notoriously difficult to answer. Domestic violence, in particular, is largely under-reported to police, generational in nature, highly politicised, and contingent on external social and economic variables. This article will use the State of Victoria, Australia, as a case study to examine how attempts to develop demonstrated progress measures on safer streets, homes and workplaces have foundered because of lack of gender analysis, political interference and the inability to translate the current language of good governance into meaningful measures for locally based community safety efforts.

The handbook of community safety, gender and violence prevention -- Practical planning tools

Introduction to the Issues * Defining the Problem: The Prevalence of Violence and Insecurity * Analysing the Problem: Causes, Consequences and Prevention of Violence * Coordinated Community Safety: From Local to Global * The Process of Community Safety Planning * The Components of Community Safety * The Future of Community Safety and Violence Prevention * Index

Partnerships for women’s safety in the city: “four legs for a good table”

Ten years after the first Reclaim the Night marches in the late 1970s began to galvanize women around the right to move freely in public and private space without fear of violence, a local governance-based movement to promote women’s safety developed in European and Canadian cities and was later diffused to Africa, Asia and Latin America. This movement drew on urban planning and design as a means to promote women’s empowerment. Partnerships developed around a framework we have titled “four legs for a good table”: community advocates to push for change; local politicians to galvanize government resources; “femocrats” to capture local policies and programmes for emancipatory ends; and researchers to gather evidence around the problem and to document efforts around solutions. This paper traces the collective history of this loosely coordinated movement. Focusing on three case studies, we mark the advancements of theoretical frameworks and practical tools as the women’s safety movement internationalized, and reflect on achievements and challenges.

Half-Full or Half-Empty? Planning for Women's Safety in Victoria, Australia

Over the past two decades there has been an emerging international consensus that locally coordinated efforts are effective in addressing violence and insecurity. Promoting “womens safety” has become a recognized international planning and governance strategy. There are, however, concerns about how the “womens safety” approach can address intimate partner violence, incorporate diversity between women from different cultures, and integrate a gender mainstreaming approach to male on male violence. Finally, there are challenges in evaluating these initiatives. The paper will use the Gender, Local Governance, and Violence Prevention (GLOVE) research project in Victoria, Australia as a case study to examine these tensions.

Women's safety audits and walking school buses: The diffusion/de-fusion of two radical planning ideas

Preface 1. Introduction: The Transnational Flow of Knowledge and Expertise in the Planning Field Patsy Healey 2. Poverty Truths -The Politics of Knowledge in the New Global Order of Development Ananya Roy 3. Transnational Planners in a Post-colonial World Stephen Ward 4. Exploring the Travel of the American Neighbourhood Unit to India Sanjeev Vidyarthi 5. Cities in Transition: Spatial Planning in Modern China Bing Wang 6. Urban Sustainability and Compact Cities Ideas in Japan: The Diffusion, Transformation and Deployment of Planning Concepts Andre Sorensen 7. When Planning Ideas Land: Mahawelis People-centered Approach Nihal Perera 8. Sustainable Urban Transport Policy Transfer in Central and Eastern Europe Dominic Stead, Martin de Jong and Iveta Reinholde 9. Subaltern Speak in a Postcolonial Setting: Diffusing and Contesting Donor-engendered Knowledge in the Water Sector in Zambia Barbara Mwalia Kazimbaya-Senkwe and Peter Lubambo 10. Womens Safety Audits and Walking School Buses: The Diffusion/De-fusion of Two Radical Planning Ideas Carolyn Whitzman and Jana Perkovic 11. Institutional Biases in the International Diffusion of Planning Concepts Sukumar Ganapati and Niraj Verma 12. Developmental Planning for Sustainable Urbanisation in Asia Jieming Zhu 13. A Trans-Pacific Planning Education in Reverse: Reflections of an American with a Chinese Doctorate in Urban Planning and Design Dan Abramson 14. Crossing borders: Do Planning Ideas Travel? John Friedmann 15. Similarity or Differences? What to Emphasize Now for Effective Planning Practice Bish Sanyal