Women's Safety in the Urban Environment: An Analysis of Infrastructure Solutions and International Experience

Safety is one of the most fundamental characteristics of the quality of life in a city. A city in which a person cannot walk safely from a transit stop to their apartment building entrance after nine in the evening cannot be called truly developed, even if it boasts glittering skyscrapers, clean streets, and a convenient airport. And it is precisely within this dimension of everyday safety that one of the most persistent inequalities of the modern world manifests between men and women.
For most men, urban space is perceived as a neutral environment. For women, however, it frequently becomes a zone of constant alertness: a dark transit stop, a deserted pedestrian underpass, a long blank fence along the sidewalk, a group of men gathered near a store—all of these alter routes, restrict freedom of movement, and influence daily decisions.
According to global surveys by Gallup, women on average rate their safety at night ten percentage points lower than men do, and in some countries, this gap reaches twenty to thirty points (Fig. 1).

Fig. 1. Results of the global survey from the Gallup Global Safety Report 2024.
This difference is clearly visible in international data. Singapore, where the gender gap is a mere one percentage point (98% of men versus 97% of women), demonstrates that balance is achievable. South Africa, with an 18-percentage-point difference (43% versus 25%), shows the opposite. In the US, the gap is even wider at 26 percentage points: 84% of men versus 58% of women. Most countries, including those with "moderately developed" urban infrastructure, find themselves somewhere in the middle, and it is this middle ground that determines the actual quality of life for hundreds of millions of people. All figures are sourced from the Gallup Global Safety Report 2024 (a survey of 145,170 adults across 144 countries).
It is crucial to understand that women's safety is not a "women's issue" but rather one of the key indicators of an urban environment's maturity, a point emphasized by international initiatives such as UN-Habitat's Safer Cities and UN Women's Safe Cities Global Initiatives. If women systematically avoid specific areas, routes, and times of day, it signifies that the city's infrastructure is failing to serve everyone.
Environmental Design: The concepts of Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design (CPTED) and Gender Mainstreaming—an integrated approach that accounts for social, cultural, economic, and political differences between men and women across all spheres of activity.
For a long time, safety was considered the exclusive responsibility of law enforcement agencies. However, contemporary research in urban studies and sociology has demonstrated that a significant portion of risk is shaped not by the absence of police, but by the physical layout of the city itself. Dark courtyards, poorly integrated transit hubs, "dead" ground floors, a lack of pedestrians on the streets after nine in the evening, and poorly designed pedestrian underpasses—all of these create "vulnerable nodes" where both actual risks and the subjective sense of fear escalate.
This approach became known as CPTED—Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design. It is based on a straightforward principle: the more "eyes on the street", light, activity, and mutual visibility among people, the safer a neighborhood becomes. The "eyes on the street" concept was originally formulated in the 1960s by the American urbanist Jane Jacobs. Half a century later, it remains the central argument for the modern school of safe urban planning.
In parallel, another major trend has emerged—gender mainstreaming in urban planning. This dictates that when designing any element of urban infrastructure—from parks and sidewalks to public transit routes—the specific needs and experiences of women are integrated. This is treated not as an "additional" factor, but as a foundational baseline.
The Paradox of General Safety: Statistical indicators rise, yet the gender gap persists.
Over the past decade, a notable shift has occurred globally. The global index for perceived safety reached a record high in 2024—an average of 73% of people stated that they felt safe walking alone at night in their neighborhood. This represents a 13-percentage-point increase over ten years and stands as the highest metric since Gallup began tracking this data in 2006.

Fig. 2. Share of women for whom safety is the primary concern when using public transit, according to the Thomson Reuters Foundation / YouGov Poll, 2018.
However, the dynamics reveal a crucial nuance. Even though indicators are rising for both men and women, the ten-percentage-point gender gap remains stubborn and is showing almost no contraction. This implies that a general increase in urban well-being does not automatically resolve the issue of women's safety. Targeted infrastructural interventions are required.
The picture is particularly alarming in public transit. According to UN Women data, up to 90% of women in Port Moresby and Mexico City have experienced violence while commuting, while statistics from the municipality of Quito indicate that more than 80% of women consider public transit to be unsafe.

Fig. 3. Share of people feeling safe walking alone at night in their neighborhood, according to annual surveys conducted in 140+ countries and published in the Gallup Global Safety Report 2024/
The geography of the problem spans every continent. Quito (91%), Mexico City (90%), Cairo (83%), and Trivandrum (80%) show metrics that border on the extreme. Yet even in London, which possesses one of the most highly developed law enforcement apparatuses in the world, one in seven women reports experiencing transit harassment. According to estimates by the International Labour Organization, restricted and unsafe transport mobility reduces the probability of women's labor market participation in developing countries by 16.5%. This is no longer merely a matter of comfort; it is a matter of economics.
The Architectural Code of Safety: How to Overcome the City's "Blind Spots."
Modern urban planning has accumulated sufficient experience to identify a set of solutions that demonstrably enhance safety. They function not in isolation, but as an integrated system, and the majority of them require sound design rather than astronomical investment.

Fig. 4. Effectiveness of measures to improve women's safety in public spaces: perceptions of men and women in the UK, according to a YouGov UK poll, 2021.
High-quality street lighting is the most highly effective yet simultaneously most undervalued tool. Properly positioned light fixtures at transit stops, in parks, in courtyards, and along pedestrian routes reduce both the actual number of incidents and the subjective sense of fear. In Vienna, within the framework of the "Master Plan: Light 2016" program, the principles of lighting urban spaces were completely overhauled to incorporate women's experiences: lighting was extended not just to streets, but to transit stop approaches, park pathways, and gaps between buildings.
Visibility and sightlines are no less critical. A "transparent" space entails low shrubs instead of dense hedges, the rejection of long blank fences, ground-floor windows facing the street, and active facades with shops and cafes. When a person at a transit stop or in a courtyard is visible from the windows of surrounding buildings and establishments, the "eyes on the street" effect functions on its own, without the involvement of cameras or security guards.
Safe public transit is a separate critical domain. The measures that work here include: well-lit transit stops with transparent walls and all-around visibility; night routes with predictable, fixed schedules; emergency communication buttons inside the cabins of buses, trams, and subway cars; and staff trained in gender-sensitive conduct.
Open and visible public spaces—parks, public gardens, embankments, and plazas—must be designed so that not a single point remains a "blind spot." This implies a clear layout of space, the absence of blind bends and dark corners, and the presence of people at various times of day.
Digital infrastructure complements physical infrastructure. Modern urban applications featuring a panic button and geolocation, video surveillance systems with rapid response from dispatchers, and open maps of "unsafe hotspots" generated based on reports from residents—all of these become part of a comprehensive safety system.
In Delhi, following a series of high-profile incidents in the 2010s, the Himmat application was launched; it allows a woman to send a distress signal to the police along with her coordinates with a single tap.
In London, under the Safer Streets program, thousands of additional cameras have been installed specifically at "hotspots" identified through reports submitted by women.
The participation of women in urban planning is a pivotal but frequently overlooked element. Architects and planners who do not experience the daily reality of walking home in the dark with a child in a stroller or carrying grocery bags objectively miss important details. Incorporating women's voices into public consultations on projects is a simple and inexpensive tool that has already proven its effectiveness in many countries.
In Vienna, a dedicated office has been operating since the 1990s to coordinate the female perspective in urban planning decisions.
International Experience: Five Cities, Five Approaches.
Vienna is the pioneer and the gold standard. The systematic application of gender mainstreaming principles in the city began back in the early 1990s under the leadership of urbanist Eva Kail. The starting point was a simple but revolutionary study analyzing how women and men actually utilize the city. It was revealed that two-thirds of pedestrian trips in Vienna were made by women, yet the needs of pedestrians were systematically undervalued. Since then, Vienna has implemented over 60 projects tailored to a gender-sensitive approach. The famous residential complex "Frauen-Werk-Stadt" (literally, "Women-Work-City") became a model for many European cities: adjacent to the residential buildings are a clinic, a kindergarten, shops, a police station, accessible sidewalks for strollers, and well-lit courtyards.
Barcelona is developing the concept of "feminist urbanism," largely due to the work of the Col·lectiu Punt 6 collective. Barcelona's famous "superblocks" (superilles) are clusters of neighborhoods within which priority is given to pedestrians and cyclists, while through-traffic for cars is minimized. Widened sidewalks, active ground floors, and public spaces within residential quarters all create that very dense urban fabric in which women (and not only they) feel safer.
London acts through the "Safer Streets Fund" program, which finances municipal projects aimed at improving lighting, video surveillance, and public spaces in "hotspots." In parallel, "Transport for London" runs a program for training drivers and conductors, along with dedicated hotlines and awareness campaigns targeting harassment. This serves as an example of a systemic approach focusing not so much on the physical restructuring of the city, but on enhancing existing infrastructure through targeted measures.
Tokyo introduced women-only subway cars during rush hours in the early 2000s. This solution remains controversial, as some researchers argue that it does not address the root problem but merely shifts it. Nonetheless, it has reduced the number of harassment incidents and continues to be used to this day in major Japanese and Korean cities. In parallel, Japan invests heavily in the overall quality of the urban environment—lighting, cleanliness, and dense development with active ground floors—which explains its high overall level of safety.
Quito and Mexico City are examples of cities that deliberately transformed their approach to transportation. In Quito, as part of a UN Women program, almost the entire trolleybus network was redesigned with an emphasis on transparent stops and visibility. In Mexico City, the "Athena" program was launched in 2008, introducing women-only buses alongside a massive information campaign, #NoEsDeHombres, aimed at changing public perception of harassment.