Cities Are Designed By Men – and it Shows

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I am a new urbanist, and I am tired of men. 

Men are on television and computer screens, asking me to subscribe as they tell me how we can improve our cities and transit. Men are online, telling me about the 15-minute city. Men are in my city council meetings, telling me we need another lane on that busy road: “Just trust me bro, just one more lane.”

Don’t get me wrong, I love the new urbanist men who have taught me about how much better our cities, roads, and transit systems can be. On YouTube, CityNerd blends snark and – well, nerdy detail on all things cities. There’s Not Just Bikes, who I initially liked a lot but who sometimes comes off as elitist because he had the resources to move to the Netherlands. Or RMTransit, who just announced that he and his comprehensive breakdowns of the world’s train system are leaving YouTube for family reasons.

There’s also Charles Marohn, who founded the group Strong Towns and whose first book, Confessions of a Recovering Engineer, details the urban design failure that led to the death of a pedestrian mother and young child in Springfield, Massachusetts as the family walked to the local library. I like these men; I just find myself hungering for more women in the new urbanist influencer space.

Having more women in the new urbanist space will help ensure safe, reliable transit options not just between home and work, but to the third spaces that are critical to maintaining life. Beyond public transit, we also need well-lit pedestrian walkways and corner design that makes crossing the street safer for women and children alike. While many people mourn any possibility of city streets that are safe for children to walk or adults to bike to work, that life is still possible with good urban planning.

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