Social justice as a guide to planning theory and practice: Analyzing the Portuguese planning system

• Type: Article in International Scientific Journal
• Date: 2007

Authors

Ricardo Cardoso (Author) FEUP; Isabel Breda Vázquez (Author) FEUP

Journal

Title: International Journal of Urban and Regional Research

Vol. 31

Pages: 384-400

ISSN: 0309-1317

Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell

Indexing

ISI Web of Knowledge - 10 Citations

ISI Web of Science

Scopus - 21 Citations

Scientific classification

FOS: Engineering and technology > Other engineering and technologies

Other information

Authenticus ID: P-004-DJ7

DOI: 10.1111/j.1468-2427.2007.00729.x

Abstract (EN): The first utilizations of social justice theory as a guide to planning theory and practice were founded on David Harvey's attempt to incorporate issues of redistributive justice into geographical methods of analysis. Later conceptualizations utilize Iris Marion Young's view of social justice as an institutional condition that enables participation and overcomes oppression and domination through the achievement of self-development and self-determination. These two conceptual paths create a constructive argumentative tension that should underlie contemporary spatial planning in democratic societies. This means that, in order to contribute to more socially just urban societies, planning needs to be focused not only on patterns of distribution, but also on the relational social structures and institutional contexts in which these come about. Comprehensive and functionalist, mainstream planning in Portugal is unmistakably situated within the modernist planning project. We argue that the normative disposition of the identified argumentative tension undermines the theoretical capacity of modernist practices to achieve socially just territories. The aim of this article is to study the validity of this argument by analyzing the Portuguese planning system against a twofold set of social justice criteria.

Language: English

Type (Professor's evaluation): Scientific

No. of pages: 17