THE JUST CITY (URBS)

Exclusion, Belonging and the Commons. An Urban Approach to the Theory of Justice

R&D Project /PID2020-120021GB-100/
Financed by MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033/
Programa Estatal de Fomento de la investigación Científica y Técnica de Excelencia

Duration: September 2021- August 2024

PI and coPI: Francisco Colom González (IFS - CSIC) y Ana López Sala (IEGD - CSIC)

This project explores the idea of justice in urban contexts. There is no consensus in the social sciences about what type of human produce a city is. Its definition cannot therefore serve as a point of departure for its moral and political appraisal. A different approach is needed. The relation between space and social agency has been a matter of contention since the emergence of urban sociology. The reflection on the city has been traditionally charged with normative and philosophical overtones as well. Philosophy was born in the ancient polis and made of it its matter of concern, for the gist of the urban has a communal dimension that cannot be reduced to a mere aggregation of individual needs. To tackle the problems involved in the redress of contemporary urban inequality and exclusion, we need to gain a spatial perspective on the idea of justice that not only accounts for the constitutive elements of the urban habitat or the distributive conflicts involved. Such approach must be guided to the same extent by the possibility of developing the human capabilities.