Renovating Marginalised Urban Areas with Girls and Young Women: A Case Study from Sweden

Abstract

This article contributes to an understanding of the experience and impact of using gender-inclusive innovative planning tools to engage girls and young women in urban design, and the capacity of this process to democratise urban planning. The article focuses on the narratives of girls from a marginalised area on the outskirts of Stockholm, Sweden, who participated in the feminist urban development project #UrbanGirlsMovement. The article draws on a theoretical framework of feminist urban theory, intersectionality, and territorial stigmatisation, and illustrates how the gender-inclusive urban planning techniques used impacted local girls and re-framed the role of the planner. The girls’ narratives revealed that it was an empowering experience to be part of an urban development process as it enabled them to recognise their own abilities and societal power. The process of engagement gave legitimacy to girls’ ideas and designs, enabling them both to recognise and to use their own agency. Additionally, the process of redesigning a familiar place enabled the girls to regenerate the meaning of their local urban public space to incorporate their own subjective spatial identities. The article argues that intersectional planning tools and processes can help transform spatial inequalities in power and oppression which is crucial when renovating marginalised urban areas of Swedish suburbs. The #UrbanGirlsMovement shows that a planning process can produce more than physical designs; it can be a tool for enhanced democracy, equality, and justice in cities.