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also the case for eco-systems, rivers and forests: Massey calls this idea “radical simultaneity”, we have a duty of care towards them, and they in which stories, ongoing trajectories and have rights, even if they cannot communicate multiple voices happen simultaneously, but with us using words and therefore cannot not symmetrically. Space is permeated by petition for their rights. Justice is a human asymmetrical power relationships, practices and invention; it doesn’t exist in nature. Justice interactions. In a world of growing inequality, allows us to keep interacting with each other. scarce resources and climate emergency, this Nonetheless, it is clear that we must extend conception feeds increasing uncertainty about the notions of rights and justice to the natural how the burdens and benefits of our coexistence world if we wish to keep interacting with it, lest can be fairly distributed among us and whether a purely predatory interaction will lead to our there is a spatial dimension to social justice. mutual destruction. For Sen, by doing so, we Simultaneously, this triggers a deeper reflection are in fact extending our on how to foster spaces own freedoms, including of true democracy and the freedom to meet our THERE IS A GEOGRAPHY participation in deciding own needs. He calls it how those burdens and OF JUSTICE CONNECTED benefits are distributed. “sustainable freedom”: the preservation and TO HOW CITIES ARE expansion (where This is why SPATIAL possible) of the JUSTICE seems to be PLANNED (OR NOT substantive freedoms especially relevant, as and capabilities of it allows us to focus on PLANNED), DESIGNED people today, without the spatial dimension of compromising the the distribution of the freedoms and capabilities AND MANAGED. burdens and benefits of people in the future of our association in (Sen, 2009, pp. 252-253). cities and on the manner But we must question even the emphasis on this distribution is governed. Spatial justice our own needs. For Sen, people have needs, but focuses on mainly two dimensions of justice: they also have values, conscience, rationality, distributive justice and procedural justice. On freedom, ethics, moral feelings and codes. I one hand, distributive justice seeks the creation, would go even further to say that we must also fair allocation of and access to public goods, consider the needs of the planet and the various resources and services throughout the city. On eco-systems that make it a living entity. the other hand, justice or injustice can also be found in how resources and public goods are But what about the city, this “second nature” we negotiated, planned, designed, managed and have created, in which “factors relating to human distributed. Justice or injustice can be found actions and economic incentives” (Gonzalezin the procedures of negotiation, planning Val & Pueyo, 2009) influence the geographical and decision-making. For example, planning distribution of public goods and life chances? processes that are transparent and allow some Cities are the predominant mode of human form of citizen participation are bound to be inhabitation in the 21st century (Gross, 2016), more just than those that don’t. This is because and they seem to exert an enormous pull towards the incorporation of multiple voices in decisionthose seeking for a better life. However, they do making processes increases the chances that the not offer the same opportunities to all who share wishes, needs and desires of those voices are and construct the city collectively. There is a integrated in policy. Despite the serious critiques geography of justice connected to how cities are to participatory processes put forward by many, planned (or not planned), designed and managed it is difficult to imagine the Just City without that we must understand. Cities are spaces where participation and co-creation, following the ideas we simultaneously cooperate and compete for of Henri Lefebvre and his concept of Right to the resources, and where we must decide together City. how these resources are distributed and shared. Spatial Justice is also intimately related to For Doreen Massey, the city is the “space of the concept of Life Chances, which is the simultaneity” (Massey, 2011). Massey claimed ability of households and individuals to access urban space as the dimension of multiplicity: “If educational, economic and environmental time is the dimension of sequence, then [urban] opportunities and to design their lives upwards space is the dimension of contemporaneous (Johnson & Kossykh, 2008). existence. In that sense, it is the dimension of the social and therefore it is the dimension One of the first proponents of the idea of spatial that poses the political question of how we are justice was Edward Soja (2010) as he stated going to live together” (Massey, 2011, no page). that Spatial Justice “(…) seeks to promote
