Spatial Justice: The Concept Of Spatial Justice

In “New Axioms for Reading the Landscape: Paying Attention to Political Economy and Social Justice,” Don Mitchell incorporates old ideas from Peirce F. Lewis’s original “Axioms for Reading the Landscape.” At the same time, Mitchell includes new ideas into his axioms. In Axiom 1, he explains that “the landscape is not produced through ‘our unwitting autobiography’ (as Lewis describes it), but as an act of (social, not individual) will” (2007, 34). He also stresses the idea that landscape should be produced as a commodity. In contrast, Neil Smith explains the main causes behind gentrification. Smith explains how gentrification happens through a process which he calls “rent gap” (1979, 545). In gentrification, the landscape is a commodity because it loses and gains monetary value through disinvestment and investment.

Geography shapes who we are and our conceptualization of the world. Where we are situated in space determines who we are and how we interact with it. In his book, Race, Place and the Law, David Delaney takes on geopolitics, the actions or practices intended to shape what spatial relationship look like, the spatial conditions of social life. He discusses how every person has a geography of experience, that is, an individual way they negotiate a space. This means the same spaces can be negotiated differently. Overall, he talks about the different intersections between race, place and the law. More specifically, how black and white americans have been distributed in space and the function of legal practice in this process. He draws on court cases

According to Doreen Massey, Space is “a complex web of relations of domination and subordination, of solidarity and cooperation” (Massey 1993, p.81, cited in Neely and Sumura 2011). This definition allows one to see the incorporation of the ‘power over’, how a person will have the ‘power over’ someone (domination) and therefor that someone will be subordinate. As well as the contrast between

Restorative justice is based on the principle that criminal behavior injures not only the victim but also the community and the offender, and any effort to resolve these problems caused by criminal behavior should involve all of these parties. Common restorative justice initiatives are victim-offender mediation, circle sentencing, community holistic healing programs, and family group conferences. A key to all these responses to criminal behavior is to address not only the offender, but all parties involved including the victim and their families, offender's family, community citizens, and even the police officers themselves.

In Mark Davidson’s article, ‘Displacement, Space and Dwelling: Placing Gentrification Debate’, he cites several contemporary case studies where certain deteriorated areas have been targeted for redevelopment and subsequent evictions have taken place. Using several philosophical authors, such as Heidegger and Lefebvre, Davidson’s focuses on the effect spatial metaphors have on displacement, and how these concepts tie into the conceptualization of space. In this paper I will compile a thorough summary of the article and formulate a comprehensive analysis of Davidson’s arguments as well as his sources.

“Why Geography Matters More Than Ever,” was written by Harm De Blij. It was published August 17th 2012 by Oxford University Press, USA with 354 pages in it.

Released in 2002, the movie “City of God” presents a number of key urban planning issues that a developing country might experience. The film seeks to illuminate several ideas related to the development of slums and the type of life associated with such areas, as well as urban crime and gangs. This film clearly illuminates the issues associated with government or public housing and the social networks that come up when people do not have a private space. The effects of limited living space are increased crime and the development of local governments that run parallel to the legal units set up in the country. A discussion of the urban planning issues arising from this film will follow, in light of the issues raised by Suketu Mehta in the article

Since the earliest days of our history, cities have served as the center for economic activity, social diversity, and religious inquiry. As renowned sociologist Joel Kotkin would say, cities are sacred, safe, and busy. When we look at the modern city, we see these concepts in action. Today, cities are defined by mass populations surrounding and creating major centers of commerce and economic activity. This density creates a diverse social climate in which fosters creativity and conversation, which can often times feed into the religious historical significance of cities. This density brings along with it a whole host of issues and various challenges that must be faced by the community in which they involve. One such issue is the idea of socio- economical inequality that comes as a result of dense populations sharing the same resources within a certain area. Within any community there are limited resources, and one such resource within a city is that of land and property availability. Gentrification, or the process in which developers purchase cheap properties to turn them over into more expensive and desirable assets, is a common practice in modern cities in the effort to reclaim some of this precious resource. In looking at the city of Chicago in the United States as well as the city of Lisbon in Portugal, I will

The urban space not only reflects the profound changes in people's lives, but also reveals many social problems. Different element which includes the building, neighborhoods, housing and transportation create a sense of spatial relationship and emphasize the importance of equality in opportunity and comprehensive development. According to the article of “Why Spatial, Why Justice, Why LA”, Edward W. Soja defines the concept of “spatiality justice” as, “an integral and formative component of justice itself, a vital part of how justice and injustice are socially constructed and evolve over time” (1, Soja). In this way, he illustrates that the spatial justice becomes fundamentally important in our society and the struggle over geography is

Fraser uses artistic terms of balance, asymmetry, framing, scales, skewed, sketching, and three-dimension. This is to prepare you for the visual imagery of balance to understand social justice. In addition, the image of the geographer’s map represents the relationship between of globalization and transnational struggles with justice in the national frame.

Social justice is that status of the society where “equity” and “just treatment” of individuals exists. It is not limited to safeguarding the rights but also comes with responsibility to maintain a “society for all” providing equal opportunities. A socially just society can be achieved after examining the inequalities and seeking opportunity to curb the same by total elimination. The concept of social justice varies with the different philosophical approaches about the distribution or allocation of resources.

“The best that can be said of the conception is that it did afford a chance to experiment with some physical and social planning theories which did not pan out. “ This quote reflects Jane Jacob’s philosophical ideas in an attempt to criticize the social housing’s design approach and its associated urban planning in modern era. “The physical and social theories” outlines the urban planning idea of social housing (Utopian idea) and according to Jane’s statement, such experiment of these theories were deem to be unsuccessful. It is inevitably certain to some extent that a provocative statement towards modern era social housing approaches would hold true due to the minimal success the plans brought to the city, such as solving the working class commendations temporarily. Nevertheless, it is a failure to deliver long-standing social improvements corresponded with the increasing suspicion of modernism, one cannot simply attribute ill fate to its “innovative physical features” (As Jane said, the Utopian and Utopia), but should rather considered a range of other elements in the larger aspect of society: factors such as difficulty of racial integration, problems of financing and management, lack of bridging between architecture and planning, as well as the increasing preference of suburban lifestyle from the rising mid class. These problems reflected evidently in some stereotypes of social housing communities built in the modern era such as Pruitt-Igoe, sunny side Gardens, Paul

Over the decades, the concept of justice has been continually evolving. This is occurring based upon different moral or legal interpretations. Evidence of this can be seen with observations from Burke (2011) who said, "Few things are of more importance to a society than its concept of justice. This is because it is justice that provides criterion for the legitimate use of force. In the name of justice people are detained, arrested, handcuffed, put on trial and punished. This concept is used to provide every society with some kind of social order. Over the last 200 years, a revolution has taken place with these principles. Our idea of it is what we employ, when dealing with ordinary individuals in daily life including: making agreements, paying bills, resolving disputes and putting criminals in jail. This is a concept that is as old as recorded history and it is familiar to people everywhere. What makes it so unique is that these ideas are constantly changing which focuses on society as a whole and how people are interacting with each other. " (Burke)

The process of people moving into cities, which is called urbanisation, was happening around the world in past decades. It causes cities to have more labourers and resources than before. This makes a big contribution to the social development of cities. Thanks to these social developments, public services are becoming better in these areas. Citizens can enjoy a better life by access these public services such as better medical care, more education resources and well-built transport. It means an equitable society can be created. An equitable society means citizens can have more opportunities to access social resources and to live a better life. This essay will argue that

In this book Lynch defines that performance of the city can be measured by reference to its spatial form. But the quality of a place is depends upon combined effect of place and the society which occupies that place. Here Lynch sets up new dimensions for performance in his own criteria. Author also expresses his approach on size of the city, conservation and growth, planning practices and utopian models. The dimensions which are demonstrated in this book may not be fully perfect but of course they combine all social values as well as physical values. Lynch believed that these described dimensions must cover all features of all forms of the settlements and all these dimensions should be usable where values are different.