Struggling for gender equality in Husby : Feminist insights for a transformative urban planning

Abstract: This study explores how urban planning can adjust to goals about gender equality by assessing the ongoing project to reconstruct the center of Husby in northern Stockholm. The state-owned housing company in the area has decided to incorporate feminist perspectives in the planning and has named the project feminist urban planning. Through interviews and analysis of news- and debate articles, the study investigates how involved actors view feminist urban planning and identifies advantages and challenges within the project. Drawing on feminist urban planning theories and theories about the just city, it is concluded that feminist urban planning is about the distribution of power and to make inhabitants part of the decision-making. Additionally, the study argues that disagreement and conflict can be interpreted as part of the struggle that necessarily goes on in any process that strive to challenge and change injustices in society. However, for this struggle to go on and have a real effect on the development of the city, practices that make people’s experiences of oppression and injustices part of the decision-making in the city must be developed.