Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
identity and difference between groups and individuals, because concep-
tions of justice tend to differ according to individual and collective values
and preferences (Walzer 1983; Young 1990; Honneth 1992). In that
sense, achieving justice not only requires determining how people and
agencies deny rights and ways of life to specifi c groups and communities,
and addressing deeper relations of domination and oppression in society,
but doing so in ways that account for difference (Young 1990).
The concept of spatial justice offers a means for understanding the
presence of climate inequalities between and within countries, as well as
the claims of governments and activists for climate justice. Spatial justice
is defi ned as the equitable allocation of socially valued resources such as
the jobs, political power, income, social services, and environmental
goods in space, and the presence of equal opportunities to make use of
these resources over time (Soja 2009; Marcuse 2009). While their empha-
sis remains on achieving justice, most spatial justice scholars investigate
the ways geographic determinants and differentials shape diverse forms
of inequities, including those related to environmental, urban, and
regional inequalities.
A dialectical dynamic is present at the center of spatial injustices since
social and human processes shape spatial patterns as much as spatial
patterns shape social processes (Soja 2009). On the one hand, for
instance, social exclusion and poverty often result in rural-urban migra-
tion and the subsequent growth of slums on the outskirts of cities. In
cities such as Quito and Rio, this process has resulted in entire fragile
hillsides and slopes slowly being transformed into
favelas
. On the
other hand, when government agencies situate public housing structures
in fl oodplains and on other types of marginal lands, local residents
are placed at risk in the case of extreme weather events. While a
dialectical relationship may be present, national, regional, and urban
spatial injustices typically are produced and reproduced by relatively
stable institutions and norms that are contained within geographic areas
(Dikeç 2001).
Spatial injustices occur at a variety of scales. At the global scale, the
capitalist model of growth and profi t maximization, and the related goal
of protecting capital and lower labor costs, often is viewed as being
at the root of injustices that emerge between countries (Harvey 1996;
Merrifi eld and Swyngedouw 1997; Soja 2000). Capitalist growth and
cycles of investments and devalorization also are infl uential at the local
level. For instance, patterns of urban renewal and growth force the
poor to live in marginalized neighborhoods with poor living conditions
