FLorencia Andreola avoids talking about “city of women”. It is not for a “female city” or “feminist” that, with the association Sex and the Cityhas been fighting and working for years. «What we do is rather ptry to understand what people’s daily lives are like, how they are organised, what needs they express. Who finds the answer and how». And it’s not just women who trip on a step while pushing a stroller. Or not finding a bench to sit on if they want to have a word with a friend. Or to feel uncomfortable if they pass through a deserted and dark street in the evening. There are many social targets who see their desires frustrated when they move around our cities. This is why the title of today’s panel at International Festival for Gender Equality in Perugia (from 4 to 9 May 2026), in which Florencia Andreola participated is “Planning the city of care. Towards gender urbanism”. To tell the whole plurality of people who in this 2026 do not live in the cities in which they live, in Italy.
Florencia Andreola and what gender urbanism is
Architect and co-founder of the Sex and the City Association, Andreola then admits that yes, women and gender minorities stand out among the targets in difficulty. «Simply because cities have historically been conceived, designed and administered by men. And it’s not like these men had it in for women. AND question of empathy: Have you ever pushed a stroller? Do you have any idea what it means to be afraid in the evening when you return home? Has this ever happened to you? Because if it has never happened to you, it is very difficult for you to think of finding a solution to that problem.” The work that Sex and the City does is to support public administrations in the attempt to build policies that are capable of responding to the diversified needs of the population. “For example, girls.”
Over to the girls
“It’s a super interesting target that no one cares about.” The architect explains that in Italy there is no public space that was designed with them, for them, to ensure that they don’t stay at home. “You can always argue that girls are free to play basketball and football, but the truth is in those public spaces male groups play it is very difficult for girls to do so. Besides, maybe that’s not what they want».
Florencia Andreola, photo Stefano Anzini
In cities similar to ours, such as Vienna, Copenhagen or Madrid, many studies have been carried out with girls: it has been seen that they rather want spaces to chat, to listen to music, perhaps to study, or to draw. And «more sheltered than boys, who often like to be at the center of public space in a performative way. The spaces that have been designed in these cities with the participation of teenagers are therefore often spaces for rest, in which to simply spend time».
The most interesting thing is that at the moment they are made these spaces intercept the needs of many other people. Because it is a fact that cities today are not designed for spending time. Tables and chairs are those of restaurants and bars, and are designed for consumption. There are few benches, both for the girls and for the elderly who perhaps need a stop on their journeys. «But tomorrow we will be those elderly people: the population is aging and the cities are not ready, with architectural barriers everywhere and flashing traffic lights», continues Andreola.
Gender urban planning and security: a problem of perception
Another central theme that is talked about a lot is that of safety. The problem is how we talk about it: «It has always been approached by the right in a confident manner while the left has kept a little away from it, because it is clearly slippery». The truth is that dangerous things have always happened in cities. But the security alarm can easily be reduced. «Just to give a comparative figure, at the beginning of the 1990s 100 people were killed a year in Milan. Today 7. Violence is much less exhibited in our cities. It actually happens much more in private spaceif it is true that more than 80% of gender violence occurs in the domestic sphere.”
Why raise the alarm about violence in public spaces? «It is convenient for us because on the one hand it helps to recognize migrants as the scapegoat, on the other because it pushes women back into the domestic environment, perceived as safer». Exactly, perceived. The theme is a theme of perception. «We don’t really care whether cities are dangerous or not: what interests us is whether they are perceived that way deal with the fear that women, but also men, feel when crossing cities».
Neighborhood, community, safety
The leap in quality concerns the solution: instead of the militarization of public space, of scapegoating, «let’s try to understand where people are doing well, what are the characteristics of the places where they feel safe. We will discover that they are not the places where the armed forces are. But the places spontaneously manned by people, where elderly people, women and children can… stay. In a place like this, even if I felt uncomfortable, I could ask for help.”
The 15 minute city model
A space like this is a space inhabited by a community that feels the neighborhood is “its own”. «It resembles the 15-minute city model (in which essential services – work, shopping, health, education, leisure – are accessible on foot or by bicycle within 15 minutes, ed.), in which people are linked to the territory, in which the distances to be traveled every day are sustainable.” And this is important for everyone but, even more so, for women, who don’t just do home-work-gym every day. But who – still mostly – take care of children and elderly family members. Or, in the case of grandmothers, grandchildren.
«What you imagine, then, is a city of care, which takes care of people’s needs, and even those of which they are not even aware. Cities different from ours, although beautiful and, indeed, more and more beautiful. But according to a model of urban decoration that makes degradation invisible by relocating it”.
Gentrification and relocation of social hardship
Homeless, migrants, poor, addicts: we don’t want to see them, so we move them. “AND the gentrification process of the city: it makes that part of the city attractive for those who don’t want problems”. For those who have money to spend, for tourists. This way, real estate values can be raised. And it matters little if the businesses change management every year, if they are totally anonymous places. «If, as they are, they cannot become places of discussion or refuge for those who are uncomfortable. Those “eyes on the road” that Jane Jacobs already talked aboutthat responsible presence of residents and passers-by in a spontaneous control network capable of guaranteeing safety for all, today they are no longer there».
Virtuous examples. Madrid, Barcelona, Vienna
However, many cities abroad similar to ours demonstrate that a different world is possible. TO Madrid or Barcelonafor example, there is one different culture of public space: «You go out at 11 at night and there aren’t just kids out partying, there are families, there are children».
OR Vienna«who has been working on these issues for 30 years, practically applying the so-called gender mainstreaming: that is, a gender perspective to all urban policies.” Each choice is weighed on the basis of certain indices, and then monitored based on those indices. «More than 60 pilot projects have been activated in public spaces: parts of the city, parks, squares, streets, sidewalks have been redesigned thanks to the contribution of participatory processes with specific targets. And not only women but also, for example, the homeless who live in a certain square. Or the foreign merchants who work there”, explains Andreola. «I’m thinking of Reumannplatz for example: it was redesigned involving many different targets. Today it is made up of small fluid areas, which correspond to the various targets that live there: from Turkish immigrants to school girls who today have a stage on which to dance and make music.”
And in Italy?
There are many reasons why nothing similar is born and takes off in Italy. Andreola cites the pandemic, intergenerational conflicts, the interests of those who, all things considered, appreciate these beautiful, orderly and successful cities: this pushes the administrations to continue along the same path. But there is also a deeper reason. «THEn Italy it’s as if the audience was always there someone else. We don’t feel it is ours, we don’t feel responsible. We prefer delegate: I pay your taxes, you take care of me. Of my streets, my squares, my benches.”
The first step, then, could be this. Change perspective, leave the house and walk. (Sex and The City also organizes interesting explorations after dark, like the one on April 27th in the Gambara neighborhood of Milan). Maybe try to stop, without consuming anything, with no other objective than to stay. Is there a place to do this? Other people around? We can all imagine a different city.