Urban Spatial Justice Research Articles

Spatial heterogeneity and interaction effect of urban blue and green spaces on housing prices

Rapid urbanization presents policymakers and planners with the challenge of balancing public open spaces design with the conservation and improvement of natural resources. A comprehensive understanding of the land economic value of urban blue-green spaces (UBGS) holds immense significance for urban sustainable development, urban spatial justice and the promotion of human well-being. In this study, the MGWR model is employed to discuss the heterogeneous effects of UBGS on housing prices in Hangzhou. Additionally, the interaction effect between blue space and green space was examined at the district level, and the specific locations and spatial patterns were identified. The results show that (1) different types, features and accessibility of UBGS have different degrees and spatial scale of effect on housing prices, and will be affected by other attributes of UBGS; (2) in 30.92% of the main urban area of Hangzhou, the effect of blue spaces and green spaces on housing prices exhibits an interactive effect. The spatial patterns are divided into blue-green positive synergistic, antagonistic and negative synergistic regions; (3) green space has positive and negative effects on housing prices, while blue space has positive effects on housing prices at the regional level. The existence of water bodies can promote the positive effect of green spaces on housing prices or alleviate the negative effect. The results indicate that planners must transcend the singular focus on blue or green space planning and instead consider both in an integrated manner. This outcome can provide valuable references for UBGS planning.

SPATIAL REGRESSION MODEL OF URBAN WALKABILITY UNDER THE 15-MINUTE CITY APPROACH

The 15-minute city aims to decentralize the urban economic poles to provide local services to its entire population. The objective of this research is to geographically determine the economic poles in an intermediate Latin American city and evaluate their geospatial coverage. This research develops a geographic accessibility model to analyze the spatio-temporal distribution of the economic poles, considering the socioeconomic stratum of households in Manizales (Colombia). Moreover, we apply a spatial regression model of pedestrian trips. Results show that proximity to urban economic poles is directly correlate with pedestrian trips. In Manizales, only 35.8% of the population reaches its closest economic pole within a 15-minute walk; moreover, accessibility inequities mainly affecting lower-income families were detected. The 15-minute city approach poses a high potential to contribute to urban spatial justice to the extent that urban planners facilitate the growth of economic activities and services in neighborhoods, with special attention to the less privileged.

Incremental residential densification and urban spatial justice: The case of England between 2001 and 2011

Study of the relation between urban density and social equity has been based mostly upon comparative analysis at the city level. It therefore fails to address variations in intra-urban experience and sheds no light on the process of urban densification. Incremental residential development is particularly poorly recorded and under-researched, yet cumulatively it makes a substantial contribution to the supply of dwellings. The article presents a detailed examination of this form of development in England between 2001 and 2011, and considers its impact on urban spatial justice. We find that the incidence of soft residential densification was very uneven. It had disproportionately large effects on neighbourhoods that were already densely developed and that were characterised by lower income households with access to relatively little residential space. It thus contributed to an increase in the level of inequality in the distribution of residential space, increasing socio-spatial injustice.

A Prefigurative Politics of Play in Public Places: Children Claim Their Democratic Right to the City Through Play

Children have as much “right” to the city as adult citizens, yet they lose out in the urban spatial justice stakes. Built environments prioritizing motor vehicles, a default urban planning position that sees children as belonging in child-designated areas, and safety discourses, combine to restrict children’s presence and opportunities for play, rendering them out of place in public space. In this context, children’s everyday appropriations of public spaces for their “playful imaginings” can be seen as a reclamation of their democratic right to the city: a prefigurative politics of play enacted by citizen kids. In this article, we draw on data collected with 265 children in Auckland, Aotearoa/New Zealand, to consider how children’s playful practices challenge adult hegemony of the public domain and prefigure the possibilities of a more equal, child-friendly, and playful city.

Urban aloha ‘aina: Kaka‘ako and a decolonized right to the city

ABSTRACTThis essay critically examines the relationship between capitalism, development, and settler colonialism using Kakaʻako, an urban district of Honolulu, Hawaiʻi, as a case study. Given that Kakaʻako’s luxury development boom is occurring in conjunction with a severe cost-of-living crisis, I argue that the corporate-driven renewal of Kakaʻako constitutes a settler colonial project of erasure and accumulation through Indigenous dispossession. Crucially, the participation of Indigenous landowning entities in Kakaʻako's redevelopment highlights the need to understand how capitalist exploitation can operate across the settler-native binary through the deployment of a worldview that renders land a commodity. In contrast, the Kanaka Maoli worldview understands land as ʻāina - that which feeds. This understanding undergirds calls for aloha ʻāina, a relationship of responsibility and respect between the land and its people. In rural spaces, aloha ʻāina has been enacted as resistance against colonialism and development, but settler spatial regimes have largely been successful in framing Honolulu as ‘settled’ space. I argue that when exercised in the city, aloha ʻāina provides a historically situated, place-based, and radical framework for urban spatial justice.

Urban Spatial Justice in Australian Low-Carbon City: Perth as a Case Study

As one of the prominent cities across the world holding the idea of urban spatial justice, Perth, the capital city of Western Australian, promotes the concept of “harmony between urbanization and nature”. Perth is applied as the case study on the basis of Edward Soja’s theory of “Spatial Justice” and Page’s theory of “Intra-generational Equality” via empirical approach to inquire into the coordinated and balanced development of three elements in urbanization of Perth: economy, society and environment. It articulates the temperance to the existing environment and natural resources as the core value when promoting “Intra-generational Equality” and refers to the equal allocation and rational consumption of the existing environment and natural resources as the spatial equality in Perth. In addition, another focus goes to the analysis of the relation between the scientific urban management systems and the low-carbon spatial justice, and it is “Intra-generational Equality” that proves to be the basic premise and foundation on which the relation counts, which serves as a reference to the international metropolis’ urban spatial justice across the world.

Malleable Environments and the Pursuit of Spatial Justice in the Bronx

A design team in the Hunts Point neighborhood of the South Bronx used methodologies of performance and collaborative, location-based storytelling to contend with the effects of urban spatial injustice in the community. Ideation via a series of participatory performances led to creation of a mobile cinema application as the starting point for public, location-based cinema walks. The application accepts user-generated content, acting as a new form of generative monument to the neighborhood as it evolves. The project exemplifies how installing situated technologies for an embodied form of participation can help translate local concerns to outside audiences, in this case using a metaphorical, locative media platform to discuss the evolving nature of environmental discrimination, over-incarceration, and urban spatial justice in New York City.