On infrastructure repair and gender politics: A more global view from Tallinn, Estonia

ABSTRACT

This paper explores the role of conflict in challenging dominant, heteropatriarchal structures of urban development and infrastructure governance through the case of Reidi Road in Tallinn, Estonia. Applying a critical gender lens informed by post-socialist and post-colonial discourses, the study examines the formation of the Reidi Road project through shifting political economic regimes and modes of spatial restructuring along with its contestation by an activist network led by women who encounter and negotiate gender-based identities and politics in a context where feminism is stigmatized by historical associations with coloniality. The paper analyses the situated and relational experiences, concerns, and contentions of the women activists with respect to car-centric mobility infrastructures and built environments and their efforts to shift public decision-making. Partly undertaken as a reflective practice by the women activist leaders, the paper concludes with takeaways for continued struggles and gains toward more inclusive and equitable urban futures.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. Tallinn is the capital city of Estonia, a small country of 1.3 million people spanning 17,462 square miles in northeastern Europe that has long struggled for independence against foreign occupying forces including Germans, Danes, Swedes, Poles and Russians. Since the 13th century, Tallinn has remained an important political, financial, cultural, and educational center for Estonia, with its strategic location in the Gulf of Finland and plethora of heritage sites and topographical wonders attracting annual tourist volumes close to three times the national population. To date, Tallinn’s natural topography has strongly defined its transportation and spatial development patterns. The city’s natural boundaries of Tallinn Bay/Baltic Sea in the north and Lake Ülemiste in the south have channeled urban growth along an east-west axis in a bowtie-like shape. Given the centrality of Tallinn and the prevalence of functional zoning and segregated land uses within the metropolitan region, the city effectively functions as a transit zone for vehicles moving from one edge of the city to the other.

2. Since Estonian re-independence and market liberalization, Tallinn residential populations have become rapidly and increasingly segregated by ethnicity and income, with many Russian speakers residing in areas with high prevalence of low-income households (Musterd et al., 2017).

3. Within Estonian public agencies, men overwhelmingly dominate positions of political leadership and influence at both at the municipality and council level. While women constitute 75% of municipal employees, they account for just 17%of municipal leadership and 31% of council positions. The higher level and more influential the seat, the less likely that it is occupied by a woman. Even as women tend to have higher levels of education, their average salaries are lower (Osila et al., 2019). The Tallinn City Head Architects, in the course of 100 years, have all been male, with one exception. While architectural schools graduate an even number of women and men, only 17% of the highest architectural qualifications are held by women (Ruudi, 2019).

4. The network had conducted a joint analysis of future transport sector investments, warning against then present trends of unsustainable transport planning (Madarassy et al., 2004).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the European Commission’s H2020 Finest Twins project (grant No. 856602).

Notes on contributors

Lily Song

Lily Song is an urban planner and scholar activist. Her research, teaching, and practice focus on infrastructure-based mobilizations and experiments that center the experiences and insights of frontline communities and organizers as bases for reparative planning and design in American cities and other decolonizing contexts. She currently serves as Assistant Professor of Race and Social Justice in the Built Environment at Northeastern University and was previously a Lecturer in Urban Planning and Design at the Harvard Graduate School of Design, where she was founding coordinator of CoDesign, a schoolwide initiative to strengthen linkages between design pedagogy, research, activism, and practice. She holds a PhD in Urban and Regional Planning from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, a MA in Urban and Regional Planning from the University of California, Los Angeles, and a BA in Ethnic Studies from UC Berkeley.

Helen Sooväli-Sepping

Helen Sooväli-Sepping is a cultural geographer. Her research areas include human-nature relations in the urbanizing world, communitarianism and involvement, environmental planning, and sustainable development. She is the editor-in-chief of the Estonian Human Development Report 2019/2020. Ms. Sooväli-Sepping frequently participates in policy development in the public sector and planning projects, and various committees as an external expert. She holds a PhD in human geography from the University of Tartu.

Kristi Grišakov

Kristi Grišakov is an urban planner. Her research and teaching focuses on the use of future thinking methods in the strategic spatial planning of cities. In recent years Kristi has worked with numerous urban planning projects that integrate big data analysis and data visualizations with scenario planning methods, in order to have a wider understanding about the long-term impact of trends on urban lifestyles and spatial development. She currently serves as a lecturer in the Academy of Urban Studies and Architecture and as an expert at Smart City Centre of Excellence at Tallinn University of Technology. She has coordinated the international master program POLIS in European Urban Cultures and is currently directing the Landscape Architecture division in Tallinn University of Technology. She holds a MA in European Urban Cultures and is currently finishing her PhD studies in the field of Land Use Planning and Urban Studies in Aalto University.

Mari Jüssi

Mari Jüssi has an interdisciplinary background in environmental protection science (University of Helsinki). She has been working on sustainable transport policy analyses and strategies on the local, national, and European levels since 1998. For 20 years, she worked as a senior expert for Stockholm Environment Institute-Tallinn Center, an international environmental think-tank advising national and local governments, promoting sustainable transport and spatial planning policies. Jüssi has been one of the leading mobility experts of the Sustainable Transport Report for the Estonian government, Estonian National Energy Policy 2030+, Climate Policy Roadmap 2050, Tallinn Region Sustainable Urban Mobility Plan 2035, and Tallinn Cycling Strategy 2027. Currently, Jüssi works as a sustainable mobility expert at the Estonian Transport Administration’s strategic planning unit.

Anni Müüripeal

Anni Müüripeal is an architect and an urban planner, who is currently doing a PhD at Tallinn University on the urban governance of community gardens. Her research is driven by critical urban theory and a dedication to the lived experience of the users and how the use of a space is shaped by values held by those in power. In the past, she has worked in various architecture offices, in Tallinn University as a Junior Researcher, as a project manager at Urban Laboratory, as a project coordinator for the Estonian Human Development Report 2019/2020 and as a volunteer in community organizing. She holds a MA and a BA in Architecture from the University of Edinburgh.