From covered stalls for prostitution in Germany to community centres for sex workers in New Zealand, some cities now include sex work in their urban policy

Nicole Schulze was 24 years old and €40,000 (£36,6616) in debt when she decided to become a prostitute. It was 2004 and she was living in Cologne. Two years earlier prostitution had been legalised across Germany, and the city of Cologne quickly distinguished itself: it made sex work a major part of its urban policy.

For workers like Schulze, this created a unique set of conditions. The city reasoned that if sex work was going to happen, it should be in a safe and clean space. It was decided that sex work would be allowed only in certain parts of the city – and in order to encourage both sex workers and their customers to abide by this rule, in one of the permitted areas the city built a facility specifically for sex.