Institutional portal - Municipality of Milan

Councilor Romani: "Participation is too often the prerogative of men only, with this initiative we rebalance the gaze and the weight of needs"

Milan, 16 December 2022 – Design the city with women and gender minorities at the centre. Defining public space, therefore, through a broader perspective, capable of including different needs and ensuring that every person's gaze is visible and counts.

This is the objective behind the exploratory walks of the "Her walks" project, a methodological tool that uses the direct experience of women to analyze the quality of the lived space, the social fabric, the level of maintenance, accessibility, mobility and lighting present, and return suggestions and ideas for improvement to the Administration.

Based on gender urbanism, this discipline aims to plan cities wearing observation lenses different from the traditional ones, ensuring that everyone's voice is relevant in defining the urban space of our cities.

The first exploratory walk in Milan, already used in other European cities such as Barcelona, ​​promoted by the Department of Participation in collaboration with the social promotion association Sex and the city, will be held on Monday 19 December at 20pm in the Niguarda district.

The route will start from the Citadel of the Archives in via Gregorovius, will cross some streets in the direction of via Ca' Granda, will continue towards the Niguarda hospital and then go up via Graziano, via Ettore Majorana, and will then return to via Ornato passing through the historic centre.

Accompanying the women will be councilor Gaia Romani and the urban planners of Sex and the city, Azzurra Muzzonigro and Florencia Andreola, former authors of the Milan Gender Atlas. The protagonists of this experience, twenty women residing in the Niguarda district, will be able to verify with their own eyes the elements useful for improving the perception of safety and usability of public spaces, such as lighting, furnishings, accessibility, trees and urban greenery.

"This project – states councilor Romani – was born from a question we asked ourselves, that is, how to involve citizens, but above all women, more in defining the future of the city. It is true, in fact, that participation in public life is in the vast majority of cases entirely male, which is why we wanted a tool that would rebalance the gaze, the weight of needs and bring female gazes to our attention. The contribution of every voice that occupies the public space must be considered because it is precious in planning of cities and why every place should be able to respond to diversifying needs with a view to equal opportunities. This is why we consider this experimentation a necessary tool to counteract the too many gender disparities that characterize society and its architecture".

"It is a pleasure to be able to start this first experiment in the Niguarda neighborhood – declare Florencia Andreola and Azzurra Muzzonigro – which offers a concrete possibility of building a channel of dialogue and collaboration between the women residents and the public administration, so that the daily experience of women can become a useful tool for the improvement of the neighborhood. We hope that this is only a first step towards the structured integration of a gender perspective in the planning of the city".

Her walks. The first exploratory walk in Milan