Urban Anthropologist Keynote Speaker
They are a living ecosystem we all inhabit. Katrina Johnston-Zimmerman uses spatial ethnography and feminist urbanism to help organizations build cities that actually work for people.
About
Katrina Johnston-Zimmerman is an applied urban anthropologist who has spent her career arguing that the city is not just a collection of buildings and hard spaces, but a manufactured habitat for the human species — an ecosystem that we desperately need to start loving again.
A former BBC 100 Women honoree and co-founder of the Women-led Cities Initiative, Katrina has built her career by bridging the gap between academic theory and the pulse of the street, using spatial ethnography to map the invisible social desires of a community.
With her work, she is proving that feminist urbanism is far from a niche advocacy, but is instead a rigorous, necessary framework for creating safer, more resilient, and more compassionate cities. She has applied her expertise across nonprofits, academic research and education at universities in Philadelphia and Stockholm, consulting for Business Improvement Districts and architectural firms, and working on data privacy regulations in public space for the Smart Cities department in Philadelphia.
Education
Speaking Topics
Women make up more than half the population, yet cities have been designed almost entirely without them. This talk — the foundation of Katrina's TED talk — makes the case for feminist urbanism as an urgent and universal necessity, not a niche concern.
For: City governments, urban planners, real estate developers, corporations
What if we treated cities the way tech companies treat products — by actually watching how people use them? Katrina introduces spatial ethnography as a tool for understanding human behavior in public space, and what it reveals about what's broken and what works.
For: Urban planners, architects, tech companies, civic organizations
Our streets, parks, and plazas aren't infrastructure — they're ecosystems. Drawing on field research across dozens of cities, this talk reframes public space as a living habitat and explores what it means to design for the full range of human life and democratic space.
For: Landscape architects, parks departments, developers, policymakers
How does a street heal? Not through top-down redevelopment, but through the slow, deliberate work of rebuilding trust and creating new memories in place. Drawing on her work in Philadelphia's South Street Headhouse District, Katrina explores what localized, community-led change actually looks like.
For: BIDs, local governments, civic organizations, developers, community foundations
Custom topics and workshops available. Get in touch →
Speaking Engagements
SXSW London
World Models & the Future of Urban Life
Philadelphia Citizen & Lindy Institute for Urban Innovation
Women Build It — panel conversation
Congreso Futuro — Senate of Chile
Our urban future — live national audience, 1M+ viewers
AIGA National Design Conference
Feminist urbanism & the design of public space
Utopian Hours — International Festival of City Making
Heart-centered cities & the feminist urban framework
WRLDCTY — Global Forum for Urban Innovation
Intentional Welcoming & cities as habitats
Politico Women Rule: The Exchange
Building gender-equitable communities
APA California 2020 Virtual Conference — State of Change
Big Conversation #3: Planning for the Future
Fit City Webinar — PHMC
POP-UPs: The impact of temporary placemaking on individual and community health
BBC 100 Women — On The Female Future
Non-sexist cities & the future of feminist urbanism
ASU School of Human Evolution and Social Change
Applied anthropology & public space observations
Velo-City (with Copenhagenize)
Human behaviour as design inspiration for infrastructure of all ages and abilities
TEDxRochester
Is the future of cities female?
Project for Public Spaces Placemaking Speaker Series
What would a women-led city look like?
NY Statewide Preservation Conference
Women Led Cities: Preservation, Planning, Public Space, and Beyond
Dalhousie School of Planning Conference — Shift: Streets
The future of streets & feminist urbanism
SXSW Cities Summit
Women Led Cities: Co-Creating a Feminist City
Interested in booking Katrina for your event? Get in touch →
Press
"Urban planning has a sexism problem — and it's time we talked about it."Urban Planning Has a Sexism Problem
"How curiosity and a 'caring' approach to urban planning are shifting from a radical stance into a shared necessity."Katrina Johnston-Zimmerman and the Power of Feminist Urbanism
"The future of cities is female — and always has been."The Future (and Past) of Cities is Female
"What would a city designed for women actually look like — and why would it be better for everyone?"Ideas We Should Steal: A City Designed for Women
"The best public spaces in America share one quality: they were designed for people, not for cars."Where are the best parks and public spaces in the United States?
"Urban spaces have long been designed for a narrow slice of the population — and the pandemic is forcing a reckoning."Can cities survive without office workers?
"Katrina Johnston-Zimmerman argues that cities designed around women's needs are simply better cities for everyone."What if Urbanists Ran the City?
"Without a greater level of diversity, through women's input and impact on our urban environments, we are at an impasse for the future of these, our manufactured habitats."Women Led Cities Initiative co-founder Katrina Johnston-Zimmerman makes the BBC's 100 Women list
"Streets are public spaces, and communities should be empowered to create and steward them to fit their needs."Why plazas, parklets and people belong on Philly's streets
"By applying the lens of urban anthropology to the existing sectors that control the physical design of space, we can prevent the mistakes of the past."Anthropologists in Practice: An Interview with Katrina Johnston-Zimmerman
"Rather than thinking about constantly increasing profit, we need to be thinking about constantly improving lives."On building feminist cities
Academic Publications
Book a Talk
Available for keynotes, panels, workshops, and residencies. Katrina works with city governments, corporations, universities, conferences, and civic organizations worldwide.