Challenging assumptions : gender issues in urban regeneration

The Oxfam report explores how women and men experience poverty and exclusion, why, and how their experience is changing in 90s Britain. It concludes that planners make incorrect assumptions about what men and women do and the roles they play. While recognising the importance of male unemployment, and while showing an awareness of the different needs and experience of minority groups, urban regeneration planning in Britain remains gender-blind. Schemes for new housing, shops, and community centres don't reflect the physical and social patterns of women's lives, and thus discriminate against women and fail to meet their needs.
The report draws on Oxfam's experience of development in the countries in the South, and offers guidelines. Oxfam's hands-on experience over the last fifteen years shows that unless the different roles of women and men are recognised, and unless women as well as men are included in consultation and decision-making, the result is not sustainable. To assess needs, the provision of data which disaggregate what men and women do is essential.
(Oxfam's newsletter on Gender - Nov 98, http://www.oxfam.org.uk/policy/gender/9811city.htm)