1.3 WHAT IS THE JUST CITY INDEX? The Just City Index was developed by the Just City Lab under the guidance of Toni L. Griffin, during the 2016 – 2017 academic year. It features twelve principles and fifty values that can be used to reflect on the (un)just nature of our cities. But one may ask what is justice and why do we need it for the urban development of our cities?
What is Justice?
What is urban justice?
The average understanding of ‘justice’ is the procedure of fairness. The term is regularly associated with the judicial system. A judicial court offers a platform for the interpretation of state law to resolve disputes and define right from wrong from the perspective of the state. It is about fairness in what people receive, from goods to attention. This is called distributive justice, also known as economic justice. The principle of fairness is also found in the idea of fair play as opposed to the fair share of distributive justice; this is defined by the concept of procedural justice. But when we enter the realm of urban development, which includes urban planning, economics, social sciences and governance, the term ‘justice’ needs to be understood as the fair and equal distribution of space, goods, services, rights, power and even care. There are also other forms of justice, like restorative and retributive justice. Restorative, as the name suggests, is restoration of things after a wrongful act. At times, restoration can also be achieved extra payment to demonstrate remorse to the offended party. Retributive justice describes the act of revenge, the offending party undergoes the same amount of suffering as the victims. Justice can also be interactional, that defines the quality of interpersonal interactions in a specific situation or place. People may value the treatment they get based on principles of justice. These personal interactions should ideally include truthfulness, respect, propriety and justification. But for the sake of the urban context, we need to go a step further to define urban justice.
Urban justice has its origins in the 1960s and 1970s; it manifested as resistance to the injustices arising out of capitalism and its influence on urban development projects. This form of economic driven growth still prevails in the development of cities today. Susan Fainstein (2014) in her search for urban justice investigates the academic work of various theoreticians to identify values for a Just City. She concludes that the three governing principles for urban justice is equity, democracy and diversity. Her theory assumes a greater role for disadvantaged groups in policy making that will result in better redistribution of goods and services and a broader participatory role in policy making (Fainstein, 2014).
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Equity, democracy and diversity
Fainstein describes these three governing principles as the hallmark for a just city. But what do these terms mean for an urban planner, architect, policy maker or even a politician? Diversity is an “inevitable and desirable aspect of modern societies”. Cities should not try do away with its differences but instead aim for a common horizon that promotes the “reproduction and respect for group differences” (Young & DeBruin, 1990). Cities that do celebrate diversity are enhanced by its capacity to bring strangers together, allowing people to live beyond their familiar enclaves and more open to diverse public spaces, commerce and politics. Liberal political theory maintains that different groups with varying lifestyles can live together in peaceful coexistence. However, cities do witness a tension between heterogeneity and community. Hence, the need for democratic deliberation.
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