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• The Atlantic Cities SEP 16, 2013 <br />This change hasn't come without criticism, however. <br />"When we came up with the idea for the exhibit "Who Owns Public Space" a lot of our colleagues <br />thought it was ridiculous," Kail says. "Everyone we worked with had to give feedback. People said <br />things like, "does this mean we should paint the streets pink ?" <br />"Gender can be an emotional issue," Bauer adds. "When you tell people that up until now they <br />haven't taken the women's perspective into account they feel attacked. We still have people asking, <br />'Is this really necessary ? "' <br />Planners also run the run the risk of reinforcing stereotypes in attempting to characterize how men <br />and women use city space. To distance themselves from this, city officials have begun to shy away <br />from the term gender mainstreaming, opting instead for the label 'Fair Shared City.' <br />Whatever its limitations, there's no question that mainstreaming has left an indelible mark on the <br />Austrian capital. It began as a way to look at how men and women use city space differently. Today, <br />however, mainstreaming has evolved into a much broader concept. It's become a way of changing <br />the structure and fabric of the city so that different groups of people can coexist. "For me, it's a <br />political approach to planning," Kail says. "It's about bringing people into spaces where they didn't <br />exist before or felt they had no right to exist." <br />Keywords: Gender, Urban Planning <br />Clare Foran is a staff writer at National Journal. All posts <br />