This volume challenges the imagery of cities by looking through a gendered lens at how women utilize urban space. Focusing on the conceptual and methodological manner of boundaries, the book reminds us that women are members of multiple and diverse groups and as such, they can be active, creative, and powerful agents. Multidisciplinary essays, contributed by urbanists, geographers, political scientists, and historians, explore the ways in which women confront, break down, resist, and form new boundaries and interconnections, both visible and invisible. Arguing for a change in the traditional agenda of cities, the authors investigate how aspects of urban life and space would look considerably different if the alternatives and options presented by women and other marginalized groups were taken into account. They urge us toward a better understanding of how diverse social groups interact, how urban space can enhance such interaction, and what role formal and informal laws, by-laws, policies, and other planning measures should play.

This innovative collection explores the concept of space as it relates to feminist studies. Utilizing a range of theoretical perspectives, a distinguished group of international scholars crosses over the 'thresholds' of difference, methodology, and representation that challenge feminist geography. The contributors extend our understanding of spatial connections, including the role of social space in the construction of gendered and sexed identities, the need to sensitize feminist methodology to 'place' contexts, and the importance of examining representations as sociopolitical and spatial artifacts. This volume has broad interdisciplinary appeal while pointing in specific directions for new research areas, new thresholds, within the discipline of geography.