Smart and Caring Cities: Toward a New Urban Paradigm

^{UN Women Regional Director Bibiana Aido (background left) and UN Women Executive Director Sima Bahous (center) visit a “Care Block” in Los Mártires, Bogotá, and speak with users on August 8, 2022. Photo: UN Women/Juan Camilo Arias Salcedo.}

When we talk about smart cities, we often think of technology, connectivity, and efficiency. However, how smart can our cities really be if they are not designed to care for the people who live in them? The concept of caring cities invites us to broaden our perspective: it is not enough to innovate in digital infrastructure — we must also ensure the physical, emotional, and social well-being of people in their everyday lives. 

What Is Care and Why Does It Matter in Urban Planning? 

Care encompasses all activities and relationships aimed at sustaining life: from attending to children, older persons, and people who are dependent or living with disabilities, to daily tasks such as cooking, cleaning, and providing emotional support. This work has material, economic, and affective dimensions, and although it is essential for society — and for the local economy, as we will see later — it continues to be invisible, undervalued, and mostly unpaid.

Historically, care responsibilities have fallen on families and, within them, primarily on women. This unequal distribution limits their autonomy and access to rights, reinforcing stereotypes that link caregiving to “female nature” instead of recognizing it as knowledge and a skill that anyone can develop. 

The City as a Facilitator (or Barrier) to Care 

Spatial organization, the availability of services, and how life rhythms are structured directly influence how care is provided and by whom. In Latin America and the Caribbean, territorial inequalities are evident: peripheral areas often lack access to clean water, safe transport, lighting, connectivity, and basic health and education services.

In such contexts, caregiving tasks become more demanding and time-consuming. Time — a critical factor in daily experience — is consumed by commuting and waiting, limiting opportunities for employment, education, and rest, especially for women. Thus, the city can be an ally or an obstacle: when nearby services and accessible transport are lacking, the care burden increases.

Care as Urban Infrastructure 

Whether recognized or not, care work sustains much of the local economy. Thinking about care from a territorial perspective means treating it as an essential infrastructure for urban life. This requires strategic planning that incorporates local services and facilities to reduce and redistribute care burdens.

Infrastructure and services such as clean water, safe transportation, nearby health centers, and accessible public spaces are not neutral: when designed with a gender lens, they facilitate care by improving time management, self-care, and women’s autonomy. In other words, a caring city not only provides services — it creates conditions for equality. 

^{The “Piloting Safe and Inclusive Cities for Women and Girls in Jakarta” (Safe Jakarta) project is developed with the understanding that in Indonesia, as in many other countries, violence and the fear of violence often obstruct women’s right to the city. Photo: UN Women/Ryan Brown.}

The Right to the City and the Right to Care: Two Intertwined Goals 

According to the World Bank, feminist-informed strategic urban planning should be: 

• Participatory, including the voices of women, girls, and diverse groups.
• Integrated, with gender mainstreaming throughout.
• Universal, addressing all ages and abilities.
• Knowledge-generating, producing data and capacities to influence decision-making.
• Properly funded, ensuring resources and political commitment. 

This approach recognizes that women experience the city more intensely and diversely, combining paid and unpaid work with community activities. Their travel patterns are more complex, often involving multiple stops (“trip chaining”) and greater reliance on public transport. Yet these realities are rarely considered in urban planning. 

Toward a Caring and Inclusive City 

Feminist urbanism seeks to make diversity and difference visible, to recognize structural inequalities, and to rebalance opportunities across territories — shifting priorities from productivity to the sustainability of life. A caring city places people at the center, addressing needs by age, ethnicity, ability, gender, and cultural context. This implies: 

• Designing cities that are proximate and multifunctional.
• Ensuring safety and mobility for everyone.
• Localizing urban policies to include peripheral, rural, and vulnerable neighborhoods. 

Moreover, it must adopt an intersectional lens that highlights how gender inequalities intersect with poverty, migration, racialization, and disability. Only then can we move toward an urban model that does not exclude — but rather, cares. 

^{During the Safe City programme design phase in Guatemala, following the study, more than 250 women and girls from the city, as well as civil society organizations, participated in workshops that identified concrete ways to improve women’s and girls’ experiences and feelings of safety in public spaces. Photo: UN Women/Ryan Brown.} 

 How Smart Are Our Cities? 

True urban intelligence is not measured only in sensors, connectivity, or big data — but in the ability to ensure well-being and equality for all people. Caring cities are the future: spaces that recognize the value of care as a pillar of urban life and integrate it into strategic planning.

The message is clear: innovation alone is not enough unless we also transform local urban governance — making it strong, intersectional, and participatory — toward a paradigm that places life at the center. A truly smart city is a city that cares, because in its design and in the interactions it fosters, people are at the heart. 

Article by Bibiana Aido, UN Women Regional Director for the Americas and the Caribbean, originally published in English in Tomorrow City.