Mapping Urban Injustices in Public Space: Challenges and Opportunities

Abstract

Over the past few decades, cities around the world radically and rapidly changed as regards scale, scope and complexity. This is mainly due to the increasing mobility of people, goods and information as a result of technological developments, liberalization of economic systems, economic fluctuations, wars, and climate change. These changes challenge the processes of production of built environment and create conflicts and contestations between different urban groups, who have contradicted claims on the decisions and processes influencing urban transformation.
Such situation brought the discussions on just/unjust urban transformation processes in urban research, policy and public debates. It raised questions on privileging the interests of affluent urban groups, while disadvantaging vulnerable communities. We see public space as central in these debates, as possible facilitator of a more just process of urban transformation. Public space is able to embrace different political, economic and cultural manifestations of urban groups, which allow them to voice their rights on the city. Public space can also submit encounters and interactions between different urban actors and perform as a place of negotiation between them. Public space is potentially able to promote fair allocations of wealth, resources, benefits and opportunities. Also, public space pedagogy helps us to reframe methods of understanding (un)just urban morphologies in urban research, planning and architectural theory as well as praxis. This special issue will thus focus on the question how urban (in)justices can be mapped, and which challenges and opportunities may arise from different approaches to mapping. Intercontextuality as well as intersectional research which combines an analysis of different forms of injustices (such as racial, social, religious, national, ethnic, etc.) will be discussed, alongside more practical and case-study based mapping experiences.
Different views on public space can provide us with ways of thinking to develop planning and design strategies, policy measures, civil initiatives, and social movements to oppose processes of unjust urban transformation. Yet, in the context of a rapid-shifting economic, political and social reality, it is more and more urgent for critical re-thinking of public space as facilitator of urban justice.