EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
The Just City Index aims at creating a process for collective action, as an alternative approach to urban and social development. It uses a value-based planning methodology that provides different interest groups a common toolbox to help negotiate differences and develop a joint manifesto that can lead to the creation of a ‘just’ city. The Just City Index has been developed over the last five years as a result of research and crowdsourced input on the values communities’ desire in their cities and neighborhoods to combat conditions of injustice.
This booklet chronicles the origins of the collaboration, the methodology behind the masterclass, the work produced by the participants and the future tangents of this research. Keywords: urban justice, the just city index, value-based urban development, value-based indicators
The hypothesis of this approach is that unlike economic driven growth, a value-based model can withstand political and market pressures. It uses twelve principles and fifty values as indicators to help communities find common and shared goals for future development. The methodology described in this booklet uses four exercises – reflect, mapping justice/injustice, align and create, that can potentially lead to a value-based manifesto and design prototypes that disrupt unjust processes. This Just City Index methodology was developed for architects and urban-planners by Toni L. Griffin and the Just City Lab at the Harvard Graduate School of Design. This booklet is a documentation and a blueprint of the masterclass conducted by the Just City Lab in the city of Rotterdam, in June 2018. The masterclass was developed and conducted in collaboration with the Veldacademie. Participants explored alternative futures for four test sites in Rotterdam – Hart van Zuid, Feyenoord City, Crooswijk and Cool-Zuid; all neighborhood’s anticipating tremendous transformative forces.
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Veldacademie
