Primarily, Urban Planning has been
judged on the criteria of Efficiency and Effectiveness, but in the article,’
Planning and the Just City’ by Susan S. Fainstein, the criterion of equity is
introduced and it is argued that the ultimate goal of planners and city
managers should be that of a “Just City”.
Just cities can provide the benchmark of the 21st century
cities and maybe we need to have a ‘Just city index’ instead of ‘Livabilty
cities index’, to bring the focus of urban planners to this goal. It is well
documented that it is the poor who make sacrifices in the urban setting in the
name of creating Global cities, Creative cities, whatever is the fad at that
period of time, the poor are the most neglected segment in the realm of urban
planning. The obsession of the urban planners to create cities with focus on
growth and economic development puts the poor and disadvantaged at the margin
of development mainly because they don’t have the lobbying power to influence
the planning process. It is time that urban planners should also take their
share of responsibility for the shrinking middle class and the growth of the
rich class, although much of it is due to inherent characteristics of
Capitalism. Democracy which was supposed to promote equity has failed miserably
to do, in the domain of urban planning, with the ‘property-owning democracy ‘
calling the shots and those who don’t own the property or don’t have tenure rights
on the place they live, have no say in the planning process even if they
constitute significant numbers. The threat of the global warming and the
harmful ecological effects of development has created another objective of
‘Sustainable Development’ for the planners, here also the greatest effect of
the ecological damage is going to be borne by the poor and the marginalized.
Growth with Equity and Sustainability
Scott Campbell, in an artcle “Green
Cities, Growing Cities, Just
Cities? Urban Planning and the
Contradictions of Sustainable Development”, published in Journal of the
American Planning Association (Summer, 1996) argues that planners face three
conflicting interests: to grow the economy, distribute this growth fairly, and
in the process not degrade the ecosystem.
The Road-Map to Just Cities
Agreed that the goal of urban
planning should be creation of Just Cities, but how to go about it? What are the strategies? Many cities of the world have followed the
path of ‘Creative Destruction’ in which the equity concept was never taken into
account and the underlying concept was that the winners will compensate the losers,
but history has shown that it is geography that has won in terms of opportunity
and a loser in the long run is never able to come to the top inspite of best of
the efforts by the governments. The equity intervention by deconcentrating
poverty can bring more people to work and increase the productivity of the city
and lead to economic growth. Redistribution of income has been one of the
objectives of the public policies in many cities but there is greater need for
‘Spatial redistribution’ which leads to better economic, social, and political
redistribution and ultimately fair economic growth. Social Housing can be one
of the major instrument for promoting equity in cities, housing not only gives
the much desired shelter but it gives poor an asset and a stake in the society,
contributing to greater happiness and satisfaction. Social Housing should be
planned on the principle of mixed land use to create not only vibrancy and
dynamism in cities but can also be a great instrument of unity within diversity.
Inspite of the best intentions and
efforts of the urban planners, the goal of Just Cities may remain elusive,
because ultimately the future of cities depends on the ‘political will’ and
‘administrative mindset’. With the rise of communicative planning, the
bargaining power of the rich has increased because they are better organized,
informed and own all the medium of communication, with the poor and
marginalized thrown out of this communication process. So bottom up planning
process may not represent the interests of the poor unless special efforts are
made by the concerned leadership.
