URBAN JUSTICE: NEGOTIATING FOR THE IDEAL URBAN VISION

Abstract

What is Urban Justice? Urban justice is an under-explored concept different from the more commonly studied concepts of social justice and spatial justice in architecture and planning. Urban justice is distinguished from existing notions of social and spatial justice by deriving a framework of justice through understanding the realities of the ‘urban’ context. It is fair to say that one only tends to encounter the need for urban justice within not just any social or spatial context, but specifically, within a specific urban context. For this reason, this dissertation proposes that ‘urban justice’ is a more robust framework for understanding problems of justice in the ‘urban’ context. This dissertation is borne out of witnessing emerging episodes of struggles in the urban context, particularly in the various attempts to develop a site that is intertwined with historical, social and environmental interests. This is where conflict between opposing interests surfaces, because the ‘urban’ context is made up of multiple interest groups are who have a stake in the site. While it subscribes to one stakeholder’s interests, it will at the same time reject the interests of another stakeholder, a phenomenon Davy (1996) would call, ‘essential injustice’. The concept of ‘urban justice’ emerges here to address the contested realities of planning in the ‘urban’ context. Urban justice can thus be understood through these unique attributes: (i) the process of reasoned negotiation amidst dense proximities of interests and values; (ii) the urban history of that area privileges a specificity to the case, and (iii) the pursuit for what is ‘good’ for the ideal ‘urban vision’.