Course Information: Spatiality and Justice in Urban Governance

Carolina Lunetta, MSc, dr.ir. Beitske Boonstra (ESSB) and dr. Bahar Sakizlioglu Uitermark

• Conduct a socio-spatial analysis of an area using urban planning and mapping tools.
• Develop a socio-spatial vision for a case study in Rotterdam.
• Conceptualise urban justice based on academic literature.
• Assess the role of urban governance and urban planning in facilitating urban spatial transformation processes and the implications for urban justice.
• Illustrate the social and spatial dimensions of urban justice.
• Formulate urban governance and urban planning recommendations, addressing justice in cities

This course combines theoretical classes, an individual assignment, and a practical assignment around a case study in Rotterdam. The theory in this course is drawn from the field of urban planning and (critical) urban studies and linked to urban governance and complexity.
The course starts with creating a shared frame of reference by introducing how contemporary urban spatial planning theory addresses complexity, embraces systems thinking, and links to (network) governance approaches and design thinking. It then sets out how and why spatiality is an important lens for conceptualising urban complexity by addressing the meaning and relevance of spatial concepts such as scale and layers and linking this to complexity theory. It continues by introducing urban justice. We will address how various authors approach (urban) justice. This allows us to debate the relevance and challenges of normativity in theories concerning urban planning. It then presents how justice materialises in urban space by discussing gentrification and displacement in different contexts. Then a selection of contemporary gendered/feminist debates in urban theory is explained to understand cities as gendered spaces and to discuss the production and reproduction of gendered geographies of (in)justice. It concludes with what implications urban justice has for governing urban space and spatial transformation processes. The theoretical classes will use a variety of case study illustrations of cities across the globe.

Reading exercises, individually and in pairs, lectures and group work for which course participants work in a selected area on a complex urban challenge in Rotterdam. The group work uses a design approach, and participants will go through an iterative and adaptive urban spatial strategy development process.

• A group work presentation includes a socio-spatial analysis of the selected case study area in Rotterdam and a vision for its future development. The group assignment counts for 35% of the final grade.
• An individual paper in which the participant reflects on governance for urban spatial transformation processes and relates it to the theoretical concepts presented in the reading material and the lectures. The individual assignment counts for 65% of the final grade.

The literature will be provided as an e-reader with articles and book chapters.