Inclusive Design: Towards Social Equity in the Built Environment

Abstract

As this special issue of Built Environment on Inclusive Design was coming to fruition, an article in The Guardian posed the question ‘what would a truly disabled-accessible city look like?’ (Salman, 2018). The piece identi- fied that globally by 2050, 940 million people with disabilities will live in cities (this equates to 15 per cent of all urban dwellers) resulting in the United Nations declaring that the inacces- sibility of our built environment is a ‘major challenge’. Salman’s article also presented an economic value to poor access – in the UK this is estimated to be £212bn (known as the purple pound), with an accessible tourism market estimated at £12bn. The article then presented a series of cases from around the world to highlight how greater access to the built environment was being achieved through design. This included the ‘traditional’ focus of inclusive design in considering the needs of our ageing and disabled populations (with an emphasis on mobility and sight), as well as considerations for citizens (or city/ sens – citizens of urban environments who experience sensory barriers) on the autistic spectrum.