so as was said I am an urban
anthropologist for right now I’m sure a
lot of you are wondering what is that
exactly
most of the time I assume people think
it’s something like this and I kind of
wish it was I’m not going to lie but in
reality it’s a lot more like this so I’m
gonna ask for a little participation to
start with here it’s after lunch this is
a good time I would like everyone to
raise your hand if you are a human being
right easy question
so anthropology is basically just the
study of human beings that’s us
right and I specialize in the study of
human beings in public space these are
all the places in between our buildings
and they’re very important places for
cities because we don’t have a lot of it
right so what I do is I spend time in
parks and plazas and streets watching
people and how they behave in order to
figure out what you do and why to make
cities better for us so I do this by
spending time and space watching for
patterns of behavior like where people
sit when they are provided seating or
where people sit when they’re not given
seating I also look for evidence of
behavior like for instance these desire
lines where people have decided to walk
outside of the path that they’ve been
provided and I also look for remnants of
human behavior like these cups which if
you start looking for them you will find
everywhere I mean everywhere and then
there’s just the random which I can’t
explain but more often than not honestly
I find signs of love in our public
spaces
like these hats and scarves which have
been helpfully placed within reach for
someone who might be cold or these lost
keys which have been placed at eye level
for the person who lost them and then
there are the love locks which symbolize
the solidification of a relationship and
sometimes we just leave messages for one
another seemingly randomly in our city
is for no other reason than to make
ourselves or each other smile sometimes
these can even be carved into the
pavement but my favorite are the hearts
which I find in every city that I go to
and it’s for this reason that I focus on
our public spaces because they give us
an opportunity to express ourselves in
our cities like no other place available
so obviously I love cities but I haven’t
always lived in them and neither have we
actually as a species in 2007 I was in
my first City of Phoenix Arizona and I
was learning about what urban
anthropology was our pioneers who
observed people in our urban spaces and
this is not Phoenix by the way I meant
to say that but it was during this time
that we crossed a very important
milestone as well and so now I would
like you to raise your hands if you
consider yourself an urbanist all right
not too bad so everyone in this room
should have also raised their hands to
say that they’re an urbanist and the
reason for that is because around 2007
we crossed a milestone as a species and
became majority urban and that means
that more than 50% on this people on
this planet right now are actually
living in cities for the first time in
history and this is incredibly important
because for most of our history human
beings have been hunter-gatherers which
means that we have moved around in
roving bands from place to place but
never settling in one for very long so
think of it this way imagine your life
is like a clock from dawn till dusk from
your birth until your eventual death
sorry happens to all of us
now imagine that for our entire species
so we have been evolving for millions of
years but we have been modern
anatomically human for about 200
thousand years but only in 10,000 of
that the most recent 10,000 years have
we been living in cities and that is why
this is such an important milestone that
we have crossed so if you think of it
that way that means that we have only
been urbanized for about the last 60
seconds of our metaphorical day from
11:59 to midnight and that’s not a lot
of time so if you think of it that way
cities are weird they’re messy and
beautiful and fantastic and I will never
not live in them but they are incredibly
strange places that we have created for
ourselves as our artificial habitat and
I think it’s important to think of it
that way so that way we can better
understand how we belong in this
environment how this environment impacts
us we can make better cities for people
so nearly ten years later I found myself
in the big city of New York I had just
left my job after an unfortunate sexist
experience in the workplace I was
questioning myself my place in urbanism
my role in society what I wanted to do
with my life and I was becoming an
independent consultant as an urban
anthropologist and then the election
happened so after I pulled myself out of
bed two weeks later I and put down the
wine I like many New Yorkers sought
solace in one of the only places
available to us our public spaces and it
was during one of these despondent walks
that I came across this beautiful sight
an entire subway corridor plastered in
post-it notes thousands upon thousands
of messages to each other
expressing how we feel in the moment
hopes and fears and a few swear words
and there was this moment that made me
really think about what I wanted to do
about my place is a woman about my
experiences I had got me thinking about
not only society but our cities as well
was my experience different in a city
because I was a woman much like my
experience in the workplace who has
created these places that we have lived
in and what can we do to make them
better for everyone I looked at my
bookshelf first I took a look at New
York Times bestsellers influential
Urbanists citations and my academic
papers buzzwords companies and I made a
list of 100 influential urbanist
examples and I found that of these 100
only 19% were by women I next took a
look at urbanist conferences I looked at
keynote speakers and panelists hand
tallying the women that were represented
up on those influential stages and found
that on average of 9 conferences in 2017
only 36% of those representative
individuals were women so now I would
like the women in the room to raise your
hand ok stand up stand up give yourself
a hand and take a look around
thank you we are 51 percent of the
species and yet consistently we are less
than 50 percent of the individuals that
are impacting our urban environment
urban planners designers architects
engineers Realtors you name it so as an
urban anthropologist I think a lot about
the past the present and the future of
our urban species and I wonder what
we’re missing by only relying on half of
our species to manage and design these
incredibly important places that we live
in I think this is important to consider
because not only do we have a right
to our city but also there are three key
points to focus on women in our cities
number one we cannot be what we cannot
see
representation matters it matters for
women of all ages girls as well it
matters up on stage our politicians our
even our statues in our public spaces
are mostly men what is that telling us
we need to be there for the next
generation of young Urbanists for those
women who can know that they can go into
these roles and make a difference in our
cities number two if you plan for women
and girls you plan for everyone the
problem with planning for everyone is
that you run the risk of planning only
for a few based on who is doing the
planning through either implicit or
explicit bias you end up potentially
excluding a lot of people in the designs
that you are making and number three I
think that in order to get to a humanist
City we have to have a feminist City
first and I’m so glad I went after Eliza
because now you know what feminism is
but this is incredibly important and
we’ve seen examples of this as well in
other cities where women have been able
to have control over over urban
environments and have made a major
difference for women and girls in those
cities we need to be thinking this way
not only for the sake of equity but also
because in my opinion I think that women
bring a different experience to the
table we know that I diversity of input
creates a better output for everyone and
when I talk to women about cities they
have a few key themes that they always
bring up that I think stand apart and
those include things like compassion or
empathy communication and collaboration
as opposed to commercialization or
competition and this is what I think is
key for the future of our cities I think
we need to be thinking about each other
and humans and have that experience that
shared experience in our urban
environments because these are our
artificial environment that we create
for ourselves but most importantly for
each other I’m an anthropologist which
means I love people and I think you have
to love people in order to study them
but I’m also an optimist and so I think
that the future is human but again we
have to become a female future before we
can get there when I came across that
wall on the subway nearly in tears I
decided to add my own expression I am
optimistic but we have to keep fighting
I think that we need women led cities
because they need us but it’s going to
take us all to get there thank you [Applause]
anthropologist for right now I’m sure a
lot of you are wondering what is that
exactly
most of the time I assume people think
it’s something like this and I kind of
wish it was I’m not going to lie but in
reality it’s a lot more like this so I’m
gonna ask for a little participation to
start with here it’s after lunch this is
a good time I would like everyone to
raise your hand if you are a human being
right easy question
so anthropology is basically just the
study of human beings that’s us
right and I specialize in the study of
human beings in public space these are
all the places in between our buildings
and they’re very important places for
cities because we don’t have a lot of it
right so what I do is I spend time in
parks and plazas and streets watching
people and how they behave in order to
figure out what you do and why to make
cities better for us so I do this by
spending time and space watching for
patterns of behavior like where people
sit when they are provided seating or
where people sit when they’re not given
seating I also look for evidence of
behavior like for instance these desire
lines where people have decided to walk
outside of the path that they’ve been
provided and I also look for remnants of
human behavior like these cups which if
you start looking for them you will find
everywhere I mean everywhere and then
there’s just the random which I can’t
explain but more often than not honestly
I find signs of love in our public
spaces
like these hats and scarves which have
been helpfully placed within reach for
someone who might be cold or these lost
keys which have been placed at eye level
for the person who lost them and then
there are the love locks which symbolize
the solidification of a relationship and
sometimes we just leave messages for one
another seemingly randomly in our city
is for no other reason than to make
ourselves or each other smile sometimes
these can even be carved into the
pavement but my favorite are the hearts
which I find in every city that I go to
and it’s for this reason that I focus on
our public spaces because they give us
an opportunity to express ourselves in
our cities like no other place available
so obviously I love cities but I haven’t
always lived in them and neither have we
actually as a species in 2007 I was in
my first City of Phoenix Arizona and I
was learning about what urban
anthropology was our pioneers who
observed people in our urban spaces and
this is not Phoenix by the way I meant
to say that but it was during this time
that we crossed a very important
milestone as well and so now I would
like you to raise your hands if you
consider yourself an urbanist all right
not too bad so everyone in this room
should have also raised their hands to
say that they’re an urbanist and the
reason for that is because around 2007
we crossed a milestone as a species and
became majority urban and that means
that more than 50% on this people on
this planet right now are actually
living in cities for the first time in
history and this is incredibly important
because for most of our history human
beings have been hunter-gatherers which
means that we have moved around in
roving bands from place to place but
never settling in one for very long so
think of it this way imagine your life
is like a clock from dawn till dusk from
your birth until your eventual death
sorry happens to all of us
now imagine that for our entire species
so we have been evolving for millions of
years but we have been modern
anatomically human for about 200
thousand years but only in 10,000 of
that the most recent 10,000 years have
we been living in cities and that is why
this is such an important milestone that
we have crossed so if you think of it
that way that means that we have only
been urbanized for about the last 60
seconds of our metaphorical day from
11:59 to midnight and that’s not a lot
of time so if you think of it that way
cities are weird they’re messy and
beautiful and fantastic and I will never
not live in them but they are incredibly
strange places that we have created for
ourselves as our artificial habitat and
I think it’s important to think of it
that way so that way we can better
understand how we belong in this
environment how this environment impacts
us we can make better cities for people
so nearly ten years later I found myself
in the big city of New York I had just
left my job after an unfortunate sexist
experience in the workplace I was
questioning myself my place in urbanism
my role in society what I wanted to do
with my life and I was becoming an
independent consultant as an urban
anthropologist and then the election
happened so after I pulled myself out of
bed two weeks later I and put down the
wine I like many New Yorkers sought
solace in one of the only places
available to us our public spaces and it
was during one of these despondent walks
that I came across this beautiful sight
an entire subway corridor plastered in
post-it notes thousands upon thousands
of messages to each other
expressing how we feel in the moment
hopes and fears and a few swear words
and there was this moment that made me
really think about what I wanted to do
about my place is a woman about my
experiences I had got me thinking about
not only society but our cities as well
was my experience different in a city
because I was a woman much like my
experience in the workplace who has
created these places that we have lived
in and what can we do to make them
better for everyone I looked at my
bookshelf first I took a look at New
York Times bestsellers influential
Urbanists citations and my academic
papers buzzwords companies and I made a
list of 100 influential urbanist
examples and I found that of these 100
only 19% were by women I next took a
look at urbanist conferences I looked at
keynote speakers and panelists hand
tallying the women that were represented
up on those influential stages and found
that on average of 9 conferences in 2017
only 36% of those representative
individuals were women so now I would
like the women in the room to raise your
hand ok stand up stand up give yourself
a hand and take a look around
thank you we are 51 percent of the
species and yet consistently we are less
than 50 percent of the individuals that
are impacting our urban environment
urban planners designers architects
engineers Realtors you name it so as an
urban anthropologist I think a lot about
the past the present and the future of
our urban species and I wonder what
we’re missing by only relying on half of
our species to manage and design these
incredibly important places that we live
in I think this is important to consider
because not only do we have a right
to our city but also there are three key
points to focus on women in our cities
number one we cannot be what we cannot
see
representation matters it matters for
women of all ages girls as well it
matters up on stage our politicians our
even our statues in our public spaces
are mostly men what is that telling us
we need to be there for the next
generation of young Urbanists for those
women who can know that they can go into
these roles and make a difference in our
cities number two if you plan for women
and girls you plan for everyone the
problem with planning for everyone is
that you run the risk of planning only
for a few based on who is doing the
planning through either implicit or
explicit bias you end up potentially
excluding a lot of people in the designs
that you are making and number three I
think that in order to get to a humanist
City we have to have a feminist City
first and I’m so glad I went after Eliza
because now you know what feminism is
but this is incredibly important and
we’ve seen examples of this as well in
other cities where women have been able
to have control over over urban
environments and have made a major
difference for women and girls in those
cities we need to be thinking this way
not only for the sake of equity but also
because in my opinion I think that women
bring a different experience to the
table we know that I diversity of input
creates a better output for everyone and
when I talk to women about cities they
have a few key themes that they always
bring up that I think stand apart and
those include things like compassion or
empathy communication and collaboration
as opposed to commercialization or
competition and this is what I think is
key for the future of our cities I think
we need to be thinking about each other
and humans and have that experience that
shared experience in our urban
environments because these are our
artificial environment that we create
for ourselves but most importantly for
each other I’m an anthropologist which
means I love people and I think you have
to love people in order to study them
but I’m also an optimist and so I think
that the future is human but again we
have to become a female future before we
can get there when I came across that
wall on the subway nearly in tears I
decided to add my own expression I am
optimistic but we have to keep fighting
I think that we need women led cities
because they need us but it’s going to
take us all to get there thank you [Applause]
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