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Policy does not only entail the extent to which actors within policy think in gender-inclusive or intersectional ways, but also relates to how policy can facilitate or counteract gender equality. Also in the architectural discipline, the role of gender was questioned in various architectural and urban planning studies beginning in the 1970s and 1980s: from a re-reading of iconic designs such as Margarete Schütte-Lihotzkys Frankfurter Küche or Le Corbusier's Modulor, through a critique of more every-day design decisions such as the height of a door handle and spaces designed for "the housewife", to gender stereotyping within the architectural profession (e.g. in [17] or [39]). Therefore, in the relationship between gender and space, we can ask the following questions: What is the importance of gender in the issues we prioritize when designing space (from spatial policies over urban or architectural design, to interior design)? In recent decades, there has been an increasing focus on "gender mainstreaming" which attempts to integrate gender into all policy domains, rather than treating it as a separate domain. [Extracted from the article]

According to political economists, the state's governance of infrastructure is becoming prone to processes of financialization. To date, however, research on how state owners of infrastructure enable and react to the entry of financial logics into such domains remains limited. This paper mobilizes the case of Eandis, a Flemish energy grid company, as a typical case to examine the causal mechanisms involved when state-owned utilities become subject to financial logics. During the 2000s, Flemish municipalities increased their ownership of Eandis, while the company deepened its debt exposure to optimize return on capital. In 2016, Eandis aimed to attract private financial equity and selected a Chinese investment fund as a potential co-shareholder. Although this buy-in was blocked, the conditions under which the state-owned company became increasingly entangled with financial markets remain unchanged and warrant a deeper examination. To explain this trajectory, we identify two causal mechanisms in the fields of market-making and ownership strategies by the multiscalar state. First, we show how regulatory models caused Eandis to focus on financial metrics such as credit ratings, subjecting management to financial market disciplines. Second, we find that budgetary constraints, combined with top-down utility governance, have made municipalities dependent on financial returns on utilities. The interaction between market-making and financial ownership strategies institutionalizes a financialized gridlock, in which municipal shareholders' interests conflict with the need for low consumer fees and green grid investment. We argue that reforming the regulatory framework and strengthening fiscal solidarity across state layers would allow states to develop non-financialized strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This case study unravels the ambiguous position of public energy distributor Fluvius in dealing with strategic regional transition challenges. It enriches current understandings of spatial transition dimensions and of public regime actors' role in transitions, by unravelling the territorial and institutional embeddedness of regional energy distribution systems. We disentangle three controversies in Flemish energy distribution, centred around the spatial concepts of density, spatial selectivity and socio-spatial redistribution. This spatial lens reveals the implicit spatial logics and inherently political character of transforming regional distribution systems. We conclude that a fundamental energy transition requires more inclusive governance, and an ambitious spatial transition vision. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Energy networks have supported and reproduced Flanders' dispersed urbanization, but today this energy-intensive landscape is running into its ecological and societal limits. As a part of the energy transition, a pluralization of heating solutions is emerging in the region. Collective heating systems introduce logics of proximity, spatial selectivity and collectivity into this landscape characterized by dispersion, ubiquity of services and individualism. This paper explores what spatial and socio-political questions are at stake in the transition to a fossil-free heating system: can it support proximity-based spatial development and energy democracy or will it contribute to socio-spatial fragmentation and exclusion? These potentials and risks are revealed through an in-depth case study of the city-region of Roeselare, based on scenario and design workshops with stakeholders. The research indicates that spatial planning and design have a key role in visualizing the spatial and socio-political potentials of the heat transition, by identifying opportunities for collective solutions at multiple scales, connecting energy strategies with other spatial questions and imagining more inclusive governance models. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Transforming urban infrastructures is an essential part of creating more sustainable urban regions. But rethinking these complex systems requires a better understanding of their spatial dimensions and their relation with urban morphology and spatial structure. This paper addresses that gap by examining different conceptualizations of technical infrastructure and space in science, technology and society studies (STS), transition thinking, urban metabolism studies, and urban political ecology, and draws connections with the spatial perspective of urban planning and design. It illustrates and tests these concepts through the case of energy transition in the Flemish region of Belgium. Transport and supply networks have played a crucial role in facilitating, structuring, and reproducing the region’s characteristic dispersed and energy-intensive urban landscape. Bringing different disciplinary perspectives together, the research broadens the conceptualization of the spatial dimension in transition thinking, and identifies useful concepts and design parameters for urban design to engage with the technical and socio-political complexity of transforming urban infrastructure. It reveals the energy transition as an inherently spatial project, and explores the spatially and socio-politically transformative potential of the transition towards a new energy system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]