If I had to guess, I would say most of you reading this article, probably have no idea what urban planning is. Simply put, urban planning is the field of study that helps with the organization and design of areas while sustaining social welfare, health, and efficiency of their communities. Basically, planners just make the places where we live more awesome than they already are. Although it is a newer career field, urban planning has been happening since the development of the first cities in ancient Mesopotamia, and more recently, women have begun to enter this field. Historically, urban planning has been called “an old boys club”, where one just imagines a bunch of old men gathered around maps and small models of cities, deciding where to put what and what plans to implement.
Upon writing this article, I did a little research on the gender demographics of Florida State’s Department Of Urban and Regional Planning. Being the oldest accredited planning program in Florida, the program offers many opportunities to students who want to go into planning, including joint degrees with International Affairs, Public Health and Public Administration, as well as opportunities to serve in the Peace Corps under the Master’s International Program. According to the demographics provided by the department for the 2012-2013 school year, the program had 106 graduate students, 45 of which identified as female, making the female demographic less than half of the program. With the doctoral students, it was an even split between male and female students.
I had the opportunity to meet and discuss with some of the female graduate and doctoral students of the Department of Urban and Regional Planning to hear their thoughts on women in planning. Jamie, a first year PhD student, feels that planning is highly political and believes that it is “important for women to enter the planning profession to further gender equality in politics”. She also feels that women need to enter into the “old boys club” and “help make these types of networks more inclusive, which not only is a boon for present times but will help future generations”. I also was able to discuss the importance of women in planning with Kathryn, a second year Master’s student. She saw the importance of the role of women in development of cities. “Putting women in planning is more than just improving public safety; however, it can also help to make cities more efficient in general”.
At the end of the day, men and women think differently. What might be important to women in the cityscape may or may not be important to men and vice versa. However, I think we can all agree that women deserve to have their place in the field of planning and the opportunity to make good cities great.
*If you would like more information about Florida State Department of Urban and Regional Planning or just want to learn more about urban planning as a career path, feel free to email me at hr09e@my.fsu.edu.