A Just City?

We know that that spatial qualities of cities have a direct effect on everyday life, but it seems seldom that cities are concerned with transforming poor spaces rather than creating shiny new ones. This leaves the people most affected shut out without opportunity to improve their situations. For example, in the city of Houston it seems that the shinier areas of the city only continue to be made shinier while the areas that could desperately use improvements lay untouched and in need. I know that different areas acquire more money and the city wants to capitalize further on money-making areas, but what if even a tiny percentage of that attention went to under-served areas? How much better would everyone’s quality of life be?

Improving these areas has an effect not only on the people who live in the areas in need, but also the rest of the city. Injustice is not only limited to a building or typology, but has to do with accessibility, placement within the city, scale of development, and isolation. It is ingrained in the policies that dictate how public space is used. Good design should not be viewed as something for a few, but as an equitable thing that is available for everyone.

“The normal workings of an urban system, the everyday activities of urban functioning, is a primary source of inequality and injustice in that the accumulation of locational decisions in a capitalist economy tends to lead to the redistribution of real income in favor of the rich over the poor.” – Edward W. Soja, The City as Spatial Justice

This issue is obviously highly political and much farther reaching than the building industry, yet the industry players like developers and architects are an important part of improving the quality of people’s lives. Architects as a whole have more powerful voices than they realize and need to use that to make a difference in our cities. We already have some great advocates for equity and justice like Alan Ricks of MASS Design Group and Rosa Sheng, but need to learn to use our own voice as well. Architects have the opportunity to not just make a building or space, but build a community.