Should gender play a bigger role in city design

University of Melbourne students will be investigating how cities can be more gender 'inclusive' this week, as part of a travelling design studio to Montreal, Canada. The sixteen Masters students from the Melbourne School of Design will join ten graduate students from McGill University & Carleton University in getting hands-on experience in how city planning can be utilized to take advantage of the different experiences of men and women. The students will immerse themselves in a rapidly changing post-industrial neighbourhood in Montreal, Pointe St. Charles, which is similar to Footscray in Melbourne. They will also learn about the results of tge 'Gender Inclusive Cities Program', funded by the UN Trust Fund to Eliminate Violence Against women. The program, now in its third year, has been working across four cities in India, Argentina, Russia and Tanzania to create better local government policies and programs to prevent gender-based violence. The program is coordinated by Women in Cities International, an organization based in Montreal that is providing some of the lectures for this studio. Co-studio leader Associate Professor Carolyn Whitzman said the trip would change the way our future planners understand how cities work.