A complete summary of the book 'The Just City' by Susan Fainstein for the course Diverse Cities and Urban Inequality (year ). Additionally, this document contains the lecture notes, which are aimed at gaining a better understanding of the book. This summary can help you prepare for the exam.
Lecture notes
We are living in an increasingly unequal world in the light of globalisation, neo-liberalisation and
de-industrialisation, inequalities are growing.
UK; There is inequality at the national level: London is high concentration of rich people (related to
global economic factors); nine of the poorest regions of Europe are in the UK as well great
differences between high and low at national level. Also at local level: great inequalities within
London.
Fainstein: in context of neo-liberalism, inequality is growing.
neo-liberalism:
- free market
- privatization (e.g., health care sector and hospitals make decisions based on profit, increasing
inequalities; public transport privatized leading to more expensive tickets; housing, less social
housing and more owner-occupied)
- protectionism (of elites)
- creating a good business climate; optimize conditions for capital accumulation (not looking at
consequences of employment, well-being and health).
- limited state influence
- will lead to growth and innovation
Fainstein: reconsidering the role of the state; what can states/governments do to make cities
more just.
There are different types of inequality; often a focus on income inequality. There is also spatial
inequality importance of urban policies (shape how cities function); there might be specific
policies that direct people to certain areas in the city; or there might be mechanisms like
discrimination at the housing market that make people end up in certain areas of the city.
Segregation can lead to stigmatization, deprived amenities/facilities, limits access to opportunities
(schools, jobs) etc.
Urban policies strongly shape where people end up and are channel through the system often
strong inequality where the money is invested, e.g., down town areas, tourism etc. (regards to neo-
liberalism) impacts other parts of the cities as well, as there is less money for other development
in other parts of the city.
(In)equality and (in)justice
Main focus: when does inequality become unjust.
Takes knowledge from insides on justice, and tries to translate this how this could be useful to
plan cities in a just way.
Take justice as the first principle to evaluate justice (as most important criteria), but not isolate it;
different criteria should be taken into account, but justice as central point (also how it relates to
other criteria).
According to Fainstein, most decisions are made at the national level when it comes to policies (e.g.,
housing) but cities have power to she looks at local level policy making; it is at the city level
where decisions are made that matter in terms of justice.
national policy is general policy; at the local level, they are made more concrete (translation how
these general policies should work out at the neighbourhood or city level) therefore, justice is
,important here, as at the local level, there is the power to adjust and implement this (so that the
outcomes are less unjust).
implication might be different for different localities/cities
All cities are different; translation thus differs per local areas; it is restricted to both place and
time (e.g., at this moment in time there is a specific political party, affecting implementations).
The Just City; 3 elements
1. The relation of democratic processes to just outcomes
2. The criterion of equity
3. The criterion of recognition
important for the way she evaluates justice; not look at them in isolation, also about how these 3
combine and relate to each other.
It is about the trade-off between these three elements.
1. Democracy
- Citizen participation in bureaucratic decision making
people who make decision (street-level bureaucrats) come from different social strata, and they
decide for other people. Often critique that these people are ‘white old men’ the end-users were
not consulted in these decisions call for citizen participation
- Internal colonialism: certain people made decision for certain neighbourhoods/area; not
representing everybody in that area.
- Different partnership arrangements that called for citizen participation; communicative planning
- Critique: symbolic recognition: a lot of policy makers say they tried to include residents voices and
making it participatory, but in the end it is the same result; e.g., referendum (you are asked for your
opinion but nothing really happens/nothing is done with it).
There is too much emphasis on the process, and not on the outcome (so much energy and money
to make sure the process is participatory, but the outcome is more important; you want the outcome
to be just). According to Fainstein, it is not always good to be democratic; people might only think
about what is the best for them; so when you want an outcome for the common good, this might not
be a good way to come to a just outcome (selfishness; e.g., you might not think about the different
needs of your single-mom neighbour).
tension between democratic process (1) and recognition (2), as there is symbolic recognition and
not enough emphasis on the outcome.
Equality and equity
Distinction between equality and equity
Equality: equal distribution of goods treating everyone in the same way
but if you want the outcome to be just, it might be important to cater to the needs of some
groups (instead of treating everyone in the same way, as then the outcome might still be unjust).
Equity: appropriate distribution according to needs. E.g., taxes: people with more money pays
greater % then poorer people. This may lead to resistance, as people don’t like it when there are
people who are privileged/gain more.
The just city is a city in which public investment and regulation would produce equitable outcomes
rather than support those who are already well-off.
Policy mixing neighbourhood; moving people against their will, then democracy and equity are not
served Fainstein looks at the balance between these three criteria.
,Respect for difference is important for a just city. Diversity is more than ethnic diversity, also in terms
of gender, age, life style etc. super-diversity.
When look at diversity only in terms of ethnicity, you don’t look at the fact there are important
differences within that group of migrants; there are other factors at play + you are reinforcing
stereotypes (putting people in a box) and reproduce that they are different.
Intersectionality: combination between different elements (like ethnicity, age, gender etc).
Super-diversity is more descriptive (mapping different types of diversity); Intersectionality refers to
power dimensions and a hierarchy (e.g., if a black boy is stopped by police, it is because he is black
and a boy, which puts him in a position or hierarchy on how/why is he assessed). Intersectionality
also emphasized context (e.g. it might be different at university, in a night club, on the streets etc).
Capabilities approach
Equity/inequality is from a human rights perspective, which is individual. According to Fainstein, this
individualist perspective is not enough (when looking at the collective).
Capabilities approach starts from normative ideas but takes the actual situation into account.
In capabilities approach it is about how people are situated; the actual opportunities people have
and the accessibility to resources. E.g., theoretically, you might have access to housing; but in the
capabilities approach, it is more about the real life situation (looks at individual networks and
resources; e.g., important for finding housing; also looks at constraints due to a certain situation one
is in).
Not enough to look at quality of life measures; you need to look at how people are situated, the
capabilities offered to them (and the constraint limiting them).
Focus on combined capabilities rather than human right and a more pragmatic approach (thinking
about concrete situation people are in).
Book: The Just City- Fainstein
Introduction: Toward an urban theory of justice
Deindustrialization and globalization led leaders in US and Western European cities to enter into
intense competition for private investment. Urban regimes increasingly have a narrow focus on
economic growth, with the idea that growth-promoting policies result in the greatest good for the
greatest number. Even the provision of amenities (parks, cultural facilities) is rationalized by their
potential to raise property values and attract businesses and tourists. Decisions on where to locate
facilities are based on economic considerations instead of social (development projects rather than
improve the quality of peripheral neighbourhoods). The desirability of growth is usually assumed,
while the consequences for social equity are rarely mentioned.
idea of competition: as soon as you stop building, you lose out (you have to keep up).
Challengers to competitively oriented policies have sometimes questioned the need for growth,
usually on environmental ground; more typically, they have accepted it as an aim but contested the
distribution of benefits resulting from using public funds to leverage private investment or resisted
the neighbourhood transformation that would result (e.g., high densities).
1960s: scholars of urban politics criticized urban decision makers for imposing policies that
exacerbated the disadvantages suffered by low-income, female, gay and minority residents. They
particularly condemned policies favouring downtown businesses while ignoring neighbourhood
needs (prioritizing tourist facilities over schools and labour-intensive industries).
These critiques implied a model of the just city: a city in which public investment and regulation
, would produce equitable outcomes rather than support those already well off.
Injustice: actions that disadvantage those who already have less or who are excluded from
entitlements enjoyed by others who are no more deserving; e.g., taking away housing or
employment from politically or economically weak comprises injustice. However, this is often
rationalized as being in the long-run interest of the majority or deemed actually helpful to the poor
(e.g., NYC mayor biased against poor: he says he speaks out for the middle class, because they pay
taxes and provide jobs for the poor people).
Fainstein’s effort, within the urban context, is the ‘name’ justice as encompassing equity, democracy,
and diversity and to argue that its influence should bear on all public decisions without going so far
as to develop a theory of the good city. The scope is limited to the context of capitalist urbanization
in wealthy, formally democratic, Western countries.
Plan for this book
In this book, Fainstein considers urban development in the last thirty years within three metropolitan
areas: New York, London, and Amsterdam. Building on these investigations, she then identifies the
strategies and policies that result in more just outcomes. Examining the three cities and the causes of
their varying trajectories allows for the formulation and evaluation of strategies for revitalization that
can be the program of urban social movements and the object of national and local policy.
Although resources of cities are determined largely by higher levels of government and private
investors, local public policy still affects who gets what. The choice of objects of investment (e.g.,
stadiums vs housing; schools vs. convention centres) as well as locational decisions (e.g., where to
put a bus station or public housing) is made by local governments. Whether the policy emphasis and
budgetary priorities should be on physical construction or human capital development, dispersion of
low-income households or neighbourhood improvement, are decisions made locally.
Why justice?
Justice as the norm for evaluating urban policy is a rection on the current emphasis on
competitiveness and neoliberalism reducing government intervention and enabling market
processes. Neoliberalism: market processes result in the efficient allocation of resources and provide
incentives that stimulate innovation and economic growth; state action is therefore minimized;
increasing public-private partnerships. The mission of the neoliberal state is to create a good
business climate, and therefore optimize conditions for capital accumulation regardless of the effects
on employment or social well-being idea that this fosters growth and innovation and that this is
the only way to eradicate poverty and to deliver, in the long run, higher standards to the mass of the
population.
The justice criterion does not necessarily negate efficiency and effectiveness as methods of choosing
among alternatives, but rather requires the policy maker to ask, efficiency or effectiveness to what
end? The measurement of outcomes in aggregate monetary terms leads to a trade-off between
efficiency and equity. If, instead of asking the overall benefit-cost ratio of a given project, we inquire
as to the benefits and costs to those least well-off or those most directly and adversely affect, we are
still concerned with efficiency.
Among planning theorists there is a debate between those who emphasize communication,
negotiation and democratic decision making, and who opt for a substantive concept of justice. The
difference is more one of emphasis than fundamental disagreement. The two sides point to different
metrics of evaluation: for the communicative theorists the test of policy depends on who is included
in its formulation, on the existence of an open, fair process, and on better argument as the deciding
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