Enhancing urban public spaces from a female perspective : assessing the female-friendliness of streets in Hong Kong

Abstract

Human rights form the foundation of civilization, promoting equality regardless of gender, race, religion, or physical ability. They aim to remove barriers causing social disparities and advocate for fairness and justice. Feminism, a movement advocating for female rights, aligns with the principles of gender equality and has gained more attention to the well-being of women. Under the above social backgrounds, the concept of female-friendliness, representing gender and social equality, is gaining prominence in the society. Hence, the aim of this capstone project for the Master of Urban Studies and Housing Management degree is to enhance urban public spaces from a female perspective by assessing the women-friendliness of streets in Hong Kong. The structure of this report is as follows. At the beginning, an introduction comes up first, which briefly gives an overall picture of the project, in particular the background and situation. Secondly, some literature reviews on the security of public spaces are given, especially from a female perspective in urban spaces like streets and neighborhoods. Then, a conceptual framework based on the Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design (CPTED) theory model is constructed, according to which, several major areas related to female-friendliness are obtained. Next, the methodology of this project is introduced, covering the methods that were adopted in the project. Moreover, with the use of Geographic Information System (GIS) techniques, the results of this project are introduced, where further analysis is also made to discuss them. Furthermore, some enhancement measures are given together with a case study of Seoul, a city that has performed successfully on female-friendliness. Last but not least, a summary and some suggestions are made to conclude this project report.