The future of cities is female…
As cities around the world face mounting crises such as climate change, traffic congestion and growing inequity, the need for bold, people-first solutions has never been greater. Enter the women leading the charge.
In Women Changing Cities, Melissa and Chris Bruntlett highlight the groundbreaking work of female mayors, planners, advocates, and policymakers in reshaping urban spaces for the better. From Paris to Bogota, Manila to Montreal, these leaders are reclaiming streets, reimagining mobility, and designing safer, more inclusive public spaces, despite fierce opposition.
The authors come to this subject with experience. They are Canadian-born and based in the Netherlands, and their earlier books focused on life there. This one widens the lens. They noticed that women were leading some of the most groundbreaking urban transformations around the world, and they decided to tell those stories.
The book’s choice to focus only on women is deliberate. Chris Bruntlett has explained it by pointing to the “leaky pipeline” that keeps women out of leadership, and the book documents lesser-known stories of women leading urban change. Some of the figures are famous. Anne Hidalgo built her time as Paris mayor around environmental sustainability and urban change, and Valérie Plante’s approach in Montreal rested on public transit, planning, public services, and environmental protection. Others are less familiar. Kalpana Viswanath is described as a global leader on urban safety who shows how data gathered from women’s perspectives can change how cities plan and maintain public spaces.
What makes the book more than a collection of profiles is its attempt to find a pattern. Across the stories, the authors identify five shared traits: leading with empathy, holding a long-term vision, valuing the work of care, building alliances, and prioritizing impact over power. Through real-world success stories and powerful insights, this book proves that when cities are built with women in mind, they become more liveable for everyone.
Readers should still ask a few questions. Profiles of successful leaders can leave out the failures, so how much does the book say about setbacks and compromises? The central slogan, that cities thrive when women lead, is a bold causal claim, and a reader may wonder how far a set of success stories can prove it. The five traits are appealing, but are they specific to women, or to a certain kind of leader who happened to get the chance? And much of the book seems to sit close to the authors’ home turf of mobility and street design, so I’d look at how well it covers other areas of urban life.
Those are the kinds of questions a good book invites, and this one looks built to start the conversation. It is accessible, hopeful, and rooted in real places, and it will interest planners, students, and anyone who cares about who gets to shape the city. Whether you’re passionate about gender equity, sustainable transport, or urban design, Women Changing Cities is a call to action and an inspiring blueprint for the future.