Invisible women in comprehensive plans

This paper explores attention to the needs of women in comprehensive plans. We interviewed practicing planners and analyzed a 2019 U.S. national survey to identify planning elements that address the needs of women, including zoning codes, built environment, and services. We collected 81 comprehensive plans from communities indicating their comprehensive plans addressed the needs of women. We used Natural Language Processing to explore how women’s needs are addressed in those plans. We found little attention to women’s needs compared to the needs of family, children, seniors, poverty, and minority populations. We conducted focus groups to explore why and what planners might do to address this. We find the “neutral” language of planning can exclude specific attention to the needs of women. Comprehensive plans need to be updated to incorporate new paradigms of land use, transportation, and economic development to better meet the needs of the diversity of residents, especially women.