Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
few examples of such entities today, the increased ease of communication and rec-
ognition of common problems has encouraged some cities or citizen groups to form
networks, sharing and learning from one another, as seen in the examples described
in other chapters, ranging from Winter Cities, through Resilient to Slow Cities. A
more comprehensive spread of Just City ideas from one city comes from a national
state mandating or encouraging other centres to adopt successful or proven policies
that were pioneered in one place for all cities, or from imitative behaviour by other
jurisdictions once they see that a policy in one urban place has proved effective.
3622
Scale Effects
A second spatial restriction of most current Just City approaches is associated with
scale effects. This means that the consequences of actions to reduce spatial injustice
in one city may have unjust affects an international context. For example, a move
by one city in the developed world, or even the states involved, to provide workers
with higher wages, better conditions and lower taxes, may reduce their wage ex-
ploitation. This could lead owners to move their factories, leaving the local workers
unemployed. Although the re-location provides new jobs elsewhere, there are poor
conditions of work in the low wage sweat shops and factories of Asia that produce
cheap goods for city workers in the affluent world. The increased demands from
the developed world city may exacerbate their situation by increasing their hours
of work to make the extra goods. Indeed, the practices of many first world compa-
nies in outsourcing production in the search for lower costs has increased the prob-
lems since these companies have often claimed they are not morally responsible
for such conditions. The companies maintain that they simply buy the products of
other firms, who set wage levels etc. Increasing awareness of the need to reduce the
exploitation of the workers in underdeveloped world has led increasing numbers of
developed world companies to insist that their producing partners set at least mini-
mum standards for employment and building structures in the production centres in
the developing world, which has probably marginally improved factory conditions
for many workers, creating a type of off-shore justice. Others such as Puma, the
sports clothing firm, have gone further. In 2011 they began to show the monetary
flows at all stages of their production train, not simply to show transparency in
their operation, but to encourage their suppliers to be both fairer to workers and
more sustainable in their practices. An older approach can be seen in the growth of
Fair Trade movements, especially in retail Co-operative Societies in the U.K., and
even by some municipalities, which ensures that many products sold in stores are
the result of purchases from producing units in developing countries that provide
fair wages and work practices. These policies indicate some limited progress in
recognizing the need to take inter-territorial consequences of global trade into ac-
count in the search for greater urban justice. The tragic and unnecessary collapse of
an unsafe building in which many garment workers in Dhaka (Bangladesh) toiled,
on May 10th 2013, led to 1,129 deaths, and has focused attention on this problem.
The disaster seems to be leading to new policies to mitigate, if not solve, such safety
