What if Women Designed the City?

May East was born in Sao Paulo and now lives in Edinburgh. She is an international urbanist and regenerative practitioner bringing vitality and viability to eco-communities, mining cities, indigenous villages, informal settlements, transition and ghost towns. She currently works with local & regional government, private sector and intergovernmental agencies providing policy guidance for initiatives aimed at enhancing gender-sensitive urban planning, decreasing carbon emissions, establishing sovereign wealth funds, and developing symbiotic eco-industrial parks.May's career portfolio spans diverse disciplines and areas of interest. She comes from a thriving artistic community between Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro where for over a decade, her art, be it in music, film or video, expressed a deep concern for all of Brazil's diverse environments, both in the major cities and the country's vast interior, especially the Amazonian rainforests.Associated with UNITAR for two decades, May currently serves as Advisory Member of the Division for People and Social Inclusion. She is a specialist in promoting vertical integration between community-led solutions to climate resilience and national & international donors, and the UN system and conventions. She holds a Master of Science in Spatial Planning with specialization in the rehabilitation of abandoned villages and towns, and a PhD in Architecture and Urban Planning with the University of Dundee on the topic What if Women Designed the City?.May was designated as one of the 100 Global SustainAbility Leaders three years in a row and Women of the Decade in Sustainability and Leadership by Women Economic Forum.

"The book challenges us to rethink urban development, incorporating the powerful perspectives of local women into the fabric of our cities. It calls for action, encouraging us to embrace diverse perspectives towards a future where cities work better for women and girls, ultimately benefiting us all."; Ana Paricio Carceres, Urban Psychologist, Barcelona Regional; "What if Women Designed the City? is an exceptional book, containing tangible and practical ideas to bring about positive change in how women shape and experience public spaces. As an urban planner, I believe the insights in this book could be transformative for those of us in the frontline of delivering this change. A book that is insightful, tangible and practical whilst, I dare to say, quite emotional.; Daisy Narayanan MBE, Head of Placemaking and Mobility, Edinburgh City Council; "This is a very timely book, an effective antidote to the soulless, angular, concrete and glass high-rise city that is designed to serve the interests of capital rather than of ordinary people. Will anybody listen? Yes, I think so. Women-inspired urban 'regenerative development' is now an urgent necessity. This is an important book that should be essential reading for anybody concerned about the future of the human habitat."; Herbert Girardet, Author, Creating Regenerative Cities; "One would not expect to find a masterful tutorial in regenerative thinking and engagement in a book titled What if Women Designed the City? Yet that is exactly what May East delivers... she invites the reader into a journey through a dynamic, multilayered, multidimensional living matrix that requires continually weaving inner and outer worlds."; Pamela Mang, Principal and Co-Founder, Regenesis Institute;

• Foreword 1 Foreword 2 Preface 1 | The Context 2 | Women and Cities: A Co-Evolving Mutualism Perspective3 | Systems Thinking for Urban Systems Change 4 | Leverage Points: Places to Intervene in a System 5 | Regenerative Design Bringing Vitality to Urban Systems 6 | Mapping Women's Presency through Walking Interviews 7 | 33 Leverage Points (LP) to make your city Work Better for Women and Girls 1 - Cultivating Biophilia 2 - Developing Spaces for Gathering and Belonging 3 - Designing Urban Extensions while Evolving the Whole 4 - Shifting from a mentality of maintenance to an attitude of care 5 - Redistributing land use and budget allocation for equality and gendered landscapes 6 - Creating conditions for wildness 7 - Devising a library of women-tailored bike saddles 8 - Growing and foraging for health and well-being 9 - Designing adventurous playgrounds for children and carers 10 - Working with men to redistribute power, balance representation and transform legal and planning systems 11 - Building confidence through easy to access self-defence training and seminars on rights of women and domestic violence 12 - Improving natural surveillance by design 13 - Scheduling regular patrol walks by wardens who belong 14 - Making Practical Cycle Awareness Training mandatory fordrivers 15 - Encouraging active travel as a way of life 16 - Rethinking the bus fare system for trip-chaining and redesigning buses for encumbered travel 17 - Designing fresh air routes and low emissions zones from women's and infants perspectives 18 - Promoting earlier interventions and co-creating values-based educational pathways 19 - Expanding the use of public space in the evenings by creating bio-cultural-spatial conditions 20 - Co-developing sympathetic infrastructure enabling a sense of co-ownership and care 21 - Maximising use of available local resources available in urban interventions 22 - Practicing a culture of deep listening in the design and development of local plans 23 - Fostering regenerative tourism that enhances the bio-cultural-spatial uniqueness of place 24 - Adopting 20-Minute neighbourhoods 25 - Co-creating transitional safeguarding public spaces for young women 26 - Combining gender and nature-based approaches as strategy to transform urban environments 27 - Infusing beauty in cities form and function 28 - Reconnecting Broken Links 29 - Promoting schemes on electric bicycles usership 30 - Refurbishing pavements to accommodate high heels 31 - Delineating and flowing through cycling infrastructure 32 - Purpose-building intergenerational housing 33 - Co-designing Places with (not only for) teenage girls 8 | Bridging the Gender Gap in Urban Planning 9 | Afterword: Storylines Glossary of Terms Categorisation of 33 Leverage Points Bibliography