He being the "universal pronoun" has fuck all to do with city design, and is not relevant for anything but trying to connect the idea that men were considered the default by society to how cities are designed/remain in the modern day.

It isn't an end-all and be-all proof, it isn't even a very good example of anything.

Cities are not designed considering one person's perspective or issues. The "people who design cities" is based on thousands of different people in thousands of different situations and locations. You could just as well say "Cities are designed for government workers" or "cities are designed for elected officials" or "cities are designed for architects" based on such a thing.

You will almost never find any decisions made for a city that are made for one reason or through one issue. Every decision has a thousand reasons behind it, from voters wanting a new road in town, to workers being lazy and not putting in a brick or two.

The following is, of course, as as I understand the general "City design scenario" tends to go. Honestly, it's probably a hell of a lot more complex than anything below. It is also based on "fairly modern" practices. It is also based on the US.

Things like the grid structure of Philadelphia are basic and simple structures to build roads around. Had the city been built or designed by the roamings of women rather than men, it would have still been a grid.

The only example you really could use is the idea that some cities/older cities were forged from men being the ones who primarily used roads and traveled. However, I am not quite sure it was men primarily using the roads and traveling. Assuming the article's "men use transport twice a day, women use it many times" it would be women doing the most traveling and defining of roads.

I do not think american society has ever been based around women not being able to travel alone. Isn't one of the old steriotypes that women are the ones going around, shopping, doing errands, etc, while the husband is at work?

Secondly, before the 20th century most cities and city-structures didn't exist. This isn't a question of how things were before, it is a question of how they are today. Outside of those areas that did exist in the pre-modern era, your argument does not apply.

Picking lights or making parks divided or having different options for sports is nearly entirely a matter of "does the city have the money?" A mayor or planner is going to do things like add footpaths and things for play if the money exists, because people like those things.

I see absolutely zero things about city design that rely on "the male perspective". Perhaps it is different in a city where all transport tends to be public transportation, but even then I do not see how "lets make the paths wider and better lit" is an improvement that caters to women or is not an issue from the male perspective. Everyone likes decent, well lit, sidewalks.

I honestly don't see a single area in which it seems that women are somehow singled out or not represented in any modern city-structure. The only concrete example the article has is "we made roads wider and brighter" in terms of actual city design. That is nothing. That is beneficial to everyone involved, and doesn't help men or women more (outside of if women use public transportation more often, making any changes more beneficial).

And, of course, this city is not in the US, so perhaps it's an isolated issue.

going from the article

"It’s about bringing people into spaces where they didn’t exist before or felt they had no right to exist."

The only example of this is the parks. And even that is less a "cities aren't designed around women" and more a "women use upper class parks more often than men do".