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Urban Justice

Beyond segregation and inequality – urban design for a just city

Time: Thu 2024-11-14 10.00

Location: V1, Teknikringen 76, Stockholm

Video link: https://kth-se.zoom.us/j/65454585040

Language: Swedish

Subject area: Planning and Decision Analysis, Urban and Regional Studies

Doctoral student: Yael Bratel , Urbana och regionala studier

Opponent: Universitetslektor Jesper Magnusson, Lunds universitet; Docent Krister Olsson, Tidigare vid Göteborgs universitet

Supervisor: Universitetslektor Maria Håkansson, Urbana och regionala studier; Universitetslektor, docent Tigran Haas, Urbana och regionala studier

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QC 20241024

Abstract

The objective of this licentiate thesis is to explore the relationship between urban justice and urban design, studied through the three lenses of urban imageries, urban development agency, and strategies for just urban design within the context of Stockholm. The concept of urban justice has been critically explored through engagement with academic literature, document analysis, interviews, and site visits to two case studies:  Årstafältet and Levande Stockholm.

Stockholm is spatially and socially divided. Injustices, alienation and inequality are evident within political, economic, and social structures, often manifested in, and debated through, the spatial dimension. Although urban justice is inherently a multiple and complex notion, urban planning tends to simplify and these intricate issues, reducing them to plain and shallow challenges that appear easy to resolve through urban design.

Urban design practices have often been focused on bridging physical gaps that arise in relation to injustices and inequalities. These urban design traditions based on geometric models, such as space syntax, emphasizes spatial configurations and geometric relations. Further they tend to conceptualize the city through a two-dimensional framework. In applied urban design, e.g., as in the Årstafältet project, these limited interpretations risk uncritically attributing causal importance to urban design, where strategies like "flow” and “encounters" are highlighted as applicable tools for reducing segregation.

Moreover, this thesis shows that the urban design strategies used in Stockholm, at Årstafältet, and through Levande Stockholm, rely on an accessible form of urban design focused on generic solutions (urban design recipes) and traditional urban design ideals. These strategies are common within the tradition of new urbanism. This promotes an approach to urban design that undermines its potential by assuming that goals like "attractiveness" and a "livable city" can be achieved through generic urban design solutions, such as "flowers and benches."

 Urban development seems to be trapped in a binary approach to urbanity supported by urban design that follows geometric models and urban design recipes. Collectively, these uncritical urban development strategies risk contributing to greater inequality and injustice within the city. This dissertation finds that both geometric and recipe urban design strategies favour a simplified urban layout, which undermines the broader potential of urban design practices. 

The location and manner in which urban development takes place are of great importance. Urban development is crucial for urban justice, though perhaps not in the way it is often framed in current theory and practice. Urban design is as a form of urban agency, not because of its direct ability to break segregation or create attractive cities, but due to its structural and multiple capacities to transform the urban landscape. This dissertation thus encourages urban design to continuously make visible the diverse and situated nature of cities. An urban design approach with a clear structural perspective and a critical stance on urban design holds significant potential to enhance urban justice.

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