Dr Karen Horwood

Women and feminism in planning in the UK has a history. Following on from the wider women’s liberation movement, the feminist organisations Women’s Design Service and Matrix architects both focused on the impact of planning and design on women’s lives (Berglund with Wallace, 2016). Greed’s (1994) ground-breaking Women and Planning text, alongside Little’s (1994) work on gender and the planning policy process brought academic engagement to the issues and innovations highlighted. The early 2000s saw the establishment of gender mainstreaming in the UK, the impact of which on planning has been explored and critiqued (Greed, 2005; Reeves, 2002). Over recent years there has been a reinvigoration of interest in women in planning in the UK. In 2012 the Women in Planning and Urbanistas networks were founded, focusing on increasing women’s voices within planning and broader urban concerns. More recently, the RTPI launched its online gender and planning ‘one stop shop’, whilst The Planner magazine launched its annual ‘Women of Influence’ listing. The impact of gender mainstreaming on planning continues to be of interest (Roberts and Sanchez de Madriaga, 2013; Sanchez de Madriaga and Neuman, 2016). Indeed, in November 2018 the RTPI published a diversity vision statement (re)highlighting relevance to the profession. It is in this context that an exploration of women and planning is timely. This conference will develop a conversation between academics and practitioners, and those in-between, and (re)build a network of those interested in women and planning in the UK. The conference themes include historical understandings of women in planning, and how this informs us today and in the future.

This session will explore the border between motherhood and academia. Presenters apply the geographical lens to their experiences of motherhood, and the ways in which ‘geographer-mothers’ navigate the borderlands between academia and motherhood. The session highlights research undertaken about and within these borderlands. Geographer mothers often share how we think geographically about everyday encounters with children’s television, school performances and displays, navigating the urban environment and spaces of motherhood. We share stories of divergence and melding of career and lifepaths, and the difficulties of researching at this intersection: navigating speed and slowness, the esoteric and the mundane, the cerebral and the bodily, excitement and monotony. This research sometimes becomes part of our paid academic work, but often doesn’t. Consequently, this less formal research takes a back seat to our professional focus and becomes forgotten about or hidden, just as the motherwork itself is hidden. These issues can feel particularly urgent in certain periods: journeys through fertility, pregnancy, adoption, maternity leave. Because of the intense domestic labour required at these times, these ideas are often left unspoken, half-developed, overtaken by more ‘pressing’ work. This session provides space for mothers to share this work, bringing this informal labour into the open, providing an opportunity for these insights to be shared.

Green infrastructure (GI) is an approach to green space that is gathering momentum. It is increasingly being adopted by policy makers and practitioners as a way to frame urban green space policy. This article is based on research on how the meaning of GI is developing in the policy-making context within the north-west region of the UK. It is argued that policy making at the regional scale emphasises economic development, and this leads to a particular way of framing urban green space. This article examines the ways of talking about GI that respond to this focus, the way in which they are articulated and the impact this has on ways of seeing urban green space. © 2011 Copyright Taylor and Francis Group, LLC.

During lockdown my children and I have spent time at the borderlands of one another's worlds, sharing space for working, learning, playing, caring. This paper explores insights and questions raised through this period. As a planner, I am interested in the ways we plan and form our towns and cities. Feminist planning shines a light particularly on what does and doesn’t count as planning; who or what it is and isn’t for, and how the planning processes are informed and shaped. As a mother I am interested in how children learn about space and place, their impact on it, and how they can find ways to resolve the place-based issues we all face. I have two children who have discovered Minecraft during lockdown, including playing with friends and cousins over a group messenger call. We have also watched videos about others’ Minecraft projects. I have been particularly struck by the social dimension, negotiations, conflict, collaboration, cooperation, nurturing, sharing, disrupting. Inhabiting the borderland of motherhood and work in the lockdown space, the academic within couldn’t help but apply lenses to the material I was seeing. As one of the most popular games amongst children, Minecraft represents a significant way in which children will be exposed to place-making. These children will be our planners of the future. In this paper I explore the ways in which Minecraft is (or can be) a vehicle for developing planning and considering the form it might take. This is a work in progress, inspired during lockdown and developing further outside it.

This paper examines the core strategies/local plans for planning authorities across England to ascertain the extent to which they engage with women, gender and broader equalities. Following a period of gender mainstreaming in the UK as part of the EU, and within a legislative context that requires the advancement of equality of opportunity, this paper undertakes a content analysis of core strategies/local plans to identify the extent to which these priorities are represented within strategic planning in England. The paper concludes that there is evidence to suggest a lack of significant engagement, although more qualitative research is needed.

As a feminist planner, I am interested in the ways we plan and form our towns and cities. Feminist planning shines a light particularly on what does and doesn’t count as planning; who or what it is and isn’t for, and how the planning processes are informed and shaped. I have children who have discovered Minecraft during lockdown, including playing with friends and cousins over a group messenger call. We have also watched videos about others’ Minecraft projects. I have been particularly struck by the social dimension, negotiations, conflict, collaboration, cooperation, nurturing, sharing, disrupting. As one of the most popular games amongst children, Minecraft represents a significant way in which children will be exposed to place-making. These children will be our planners of the future. I am interested in discussing the ways in which Minecraft is (or can be) a vehicle for developing planning in a more feminist form.

This article examines the development of green infrastructure policy-making in the North West region of the UK 2005–2010, through the articulation of three phases. Drawing on a conceptualisation of discourse coalitions, it is argued that this instance of the green infrastructure policy-making process became a way of bringing together various stakeholders around a shared goal. The activities that took place and how green infrastructure was conceptualized ensured that a range of policy interests was represented, and consequently, a stable discourse coalition was formed around economic priorities.

This paper examines the role of planning in addressing concerns about safety for women. The paper recognizes that safety has once again become a ma er of public interest in the UK. We examine the ways in which safety has been included within the UK Women and Planning Movement in the past, and the ways it is being articulated today. We argue that a narrow focus on safety is problematic and fails to engage with the breadth of the Women and Planning Movement. We use Sen's (1992) Capability Model to propose ways in which a focus on safety be improved through a more holistic engagement with the Women and Planning Movement's insights. We conclude that doing so will address many of the wicked (Ri el and Weber, 1973) issues planners seek to respond to.

Planning makes decisions about the built environment that impact on people’s lived experiences and as such should include the voices of all those in society. Building on discussions that have been taking place in both practice and academia, this article focuses on the inclusion of women in planning. We draw on four research projects to explore the extent to which women are included within the planning profession, and their needs are met though the planning system, utilising the Substantive Representation of Women conceptual framework as a way of exploring this. The article identifies issues with both the descriptive and substantive representation of women in planning. We conclude with the identification of further research needed.

Trust in political institutions in the UK is at a record low, whilst the urgency of climate action grows ever greater. There is a need to regain trust in Government, undertake rapid action to invest in our services and tackle inequalities in society. Cities and urban areas are crucial arenas for this action, and how people move around the built environment is central to this. Yet how people move around the city, and who makes decisions about our cities, is gendered. Addressing the specific barriers that prevent women from cycling will help reduce emissions and make the city more equitable, sharing the health, wellbeing and economic benefits of cycling across society. This report takes one question as a starting point: whether participatory budgeting, a form of participatory democracy where citizens directly decide how to spend public money, can contribute to a more gender-equitable active travel system.

This workshop will showcase the methods and findings from three distinct projects all using the escape room format

This paper examines a residential writing retreat for final year human geography and planning students held in a youth hostel in North Yorkshire, considering how it is experienced by students. This is a curriculum innovation for the dissertation module that combines aspects of geography fieldtrip and writing workshop to support the dissertation writing process and build community. Drawing on the concept of ‘the slow university’ (Berg & Seeber, 2016; O’Neill, 2014) where the ‘slowing down’ and ‘stripping away’ of the usual structures and patterns of teaching and learning create a critical and creative space for thinking and writing, we explore whether and how the Malham retreat makes space for writing. The study is also informed by our spatial approach to the processes and content of research and teaching as geographers (Massey, 2005). Qualitative focus group evidence was gathered on the student and staff experience and used to evaluate the field trip (Breen, 2006; Krueger & Casey, 2009; Stewart & Shamdasani, 2015). This paper presents the results of this evaluation and it is argued that the retreat made space for writing in three ways: 1. The space of countryside, nature and youth hostel. 2. The formal and informal learning spaces staff and students constructed during the retreat 3. ‘Head space’- the social, psychological and emotional room the retreat made for staff and students. This model of residential writing retreat could be transferable to dissertation and other modules involving a substantive writing project on all kinds of undergraduate courses.