The City - City Matters!
In the series we invite both established and emerging researchers working on the topic from the above range of disciplines, to share and exchange research insights addressing the question: Where is Urban Politics? Even more, our aim is to open these opportunities for debate and engagement also fur current students - and their roles as local citizens, future decision-makers, leaders, politicians, civil society activists, ...
Our activities align closely with two cooperating courses at the Faculty of Spatial Sciences and the University College Groningen. Regular lectures - including guest lectures - are usually open for visitors. Get in touch with the teaching team in case of interest!
The City (University College Groningen)
Each year between April and June (2b)
Lecturers: Marian Counihan, Ryan Wittingslow
When we talk about cities, we might initially think of the built character of urban spaces: infrastructures, public spaces, buildings, and so on (the 'ville'). However, cities also have social and cultural components. They capture our imagination, and are associated with various forms of life, society, culture and politics (the 'cité'). In this course we pay attention to both ways of seeing the city, and discuss the interesting ways in which they intersect.
City Matters: Urban Inequality and Social Justice (Faculty of Spatial Sciences)
Each year between September and November (1a)
Lecturers: Christian Lamker, Sander van Lanen, Sara Özogul
City Matters: Social Justice and Urban Inequality confronts you with the moral dimension of spatial planning. Too often, planners seek the most effective and efficient planning strategy to reach a pre-defined desired future, without questioning who has the power to define what is desired, and for whom this is desirable. City Matters helps develop critical agency in the field of planning to develop just solutions.
Introduction: Urban Planning from a Justice Perspective (Christian Lamker)
Prerecorded presentation for Kyiv School on Urban Planning on 2 August 2022. Hosted by the Kyiv School of Economics.
Reading List
From City Matters: Urban Inequality and Social Justice (2024-25)
Barry, J. (2020). Planning in and for a post-growth and post-carbon economy. In S. Davoudi, R. Cowell, & I. White (Eds.), Routledge Handbooks Online. The Routledge companion to environmental planning (pp. 120–129). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315179780-13
Campbell, S. D. (2016). The Planner's Triangle Revisited: Sustainability and the Evolution of a Planning Ideal That Can't Stand Still. Journal of the American Planning Association, 82(4), 388–397. https://doi.org/10.1080/01944363.2016.1214080
Christophers, B. (2021). A tale of two inequalities: Housing-wealth inequality and tenure inequality. Environment and Planning a, 53(3), 573–594. https://doi.org/10.1177/0308518X19876946
Fainstein, S. S. (2014). The just city. International Journal of Urban Sciences, 18(1), 1–18. https://doi.org/10.1080/12265934.2013.834643
Giamarino, C., Goh, K., Loukaitou-Sideris, A., & Mukhija, V. (2022). Just Urban Design Scholarship? Examining Urban Design Theories Through a Justice Lens. In K. Goh, A. Loukaitou-Sideris, & V. Mukhija (Eds.), Urban and industrial environment. Just urban design: The struggle for a public city (pp. 21–46). The MIT Press. https://doi.org/10.7551/mitpress/13982.003.0006
Hochstenbach, C. (2023). Balancing Accumulation and Affordability: How Dutch Housing Politics Moved from Private-Rental Liberalization to Regulation. Housing, Theory and Society, 40(4), 503–529. https://doi.org/10.1080/14036096.2023.2218863
Madanipour, A. (2015). Social Exclusion and Space. In R. T. LeGates & F. Stout (Eds.), Routledge urban reader series. The City Reader (6th ed., pp. 203–211). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315748504-37
Marcuse, P. (2009). From critical urban theory to the right to the city. City, 13(2-3), 185–197. https://doi.org/10.1080/13604810902982177
Moroni, S. (2020). The just city. Three background issues: Institutional justice and spatial justice, social justice and distributive justice, concept of justice and conceptions of justice. Planning Theory, 19(3), 251–267. https://doi.org/10.1177/1473095219877670
Musterd, S., & Ostendorf, W. (2023). Urban renewal policies in the Netherlands in an era of changing welfare regimes. Urban Research & Practice, 16(1), 92–108. https://doi.org/10.1080/17535069.2021.1983861
Soja, E. W. (2009). The city and spatial justice. Justice Spatiale | Spatial Justice, 1(September), 1–5 (Paper prepared for presentation at the conference Spatial Justice, Nanterre, Paris, March 12-14, 2008).
Tonkiss, F. (2020). City government and urban inequalities. City, 24(1-2), 286–301. https://doi.org/10.1080/13604813.2020.1739931
van Gent, W., & Hochstenbach, C. (2020). The neo-liberal politics and socio-spatial implications of Dutch post-crisis social housing policies. International Journal of Housing Policy, 20(1), 156–172. https://doi.org/10.1080/19491247.2019.1682234 (Policy Review).
van Leeuwen, B. (2022). What is the point of urban justice? Access to human space. Acta Politica, 57(1), 169–190. https://doi.org/10.1057/s41269-020-00178-0