Our September AIANY Women in Architecture Committee meeting explored “The Just City and the Role of Women in Designing Equitable Spaces.” Through thoughtful conversation, guided by our facilitator, Alethea Cheng Fitzpatrick, Principal & Founder of Co-Creating Inclusion, we reflected on what it means to create a Just City within our profession and beyond, and discussed how policies and practices—often unintentionally—perpetuate inequities in architecture, from the path to licensure to workplace culture.

What emerged was a powerful recognition: justice in our field requires reimagining structures that feel like ladders into more inclusive circles of growth and belonging. Participants shared how systems of access, hiring practices, and office dynamics can either hinder or empower us, depending on how they are shaped.

Inspired by The Just City framework developed by urban planner Toni L. Griffin, Toni invited us into dialogue with her reflections: 

“I would invite you each to yourselves in rooms, whether within design fields or outside of them, public, private, nonprofit and philanthropy.  The arc of my career, and I believe part of what has contributed to the small amount of influence I’ve been able to have, is in part due to the many spaces I’ve been able to occupy.  From large Architecture firms at the beginning of my career, to city government, to Harvard GSD to my own private practice. Each pivot and sector has afforded me opportunities among different audiences, resources and platforms to develop, test and attempt to execute the design and development of more just cities. I have not always succeeded to the extent that I would like, but I have always been able to move the ball a little further. 

I would love for the room to propose your own Just City Manifesto for this moment. What are the critical conditions of injustice – either in New York or within the field that must be dismantled.  Who are the champions within and outside of design needed for this work. And what is something you can do in one year or 5 years that advances the cause?

For me it’s writing, exhibiting, training a next generation to see architectural practice as a social art and to pursue projects with clients who recognize that disruption is a necessary part of advancing more just cities.”

The session left us with renewed curiosity and compassion, and a call to continue asking: How can we design not only buildings, but also processes, relationships, and communities that embody equity and inclusion?