Just Planning

It is interesting to see growing interest in the interface between the planning, sustainability and environmental justice agendas. In my book I pick up on the arguments that Julian Agyeman of Tufts University has put forward for 'just sustainability'. This seeks to overcome the tendency within some environmental debates to assume that any environmental protection is in the interests of us all equally. While the environment is a set of commons - global commons like the atmosphere and local commons like local nature reserves - we use them unequally. Some have more access to environmental resources and services than others and some bear more of the adverse environmental impacts than others. Just sustainability seeks to capture this by promoting more sustainable pathways that also address inequality. And Simin Davoudi, of Newcastle University, is ploughing a similar pathway in developing a framework for 'just planning'. You can find the full report where she develops these ideas at:
www.ncl.ac.uk/guru/news/item/environmental-justice-and-the-city-summary-report-published.
She follows the line adopted in environmental justice debates (as advocated by David Schlosberg and Gordon Walker) that sees justice not only in terms of outcomes but also participation, recognition, capability and responsibility. These are really interesting but also demanding criteria for a new planning approach. While this would seem ideal, I do wonder if we should not return to a focus on distribution first, particularly given the depth of social and environmental inequalities that we are faced with. After all, the big justice thinkers such as Iris Marion Young, Nancy Fraser and Brian Barry were clear that they were arguing for more procedural concerns to be incorporated into the justice agenda in addition to, or even after distribution being addressed. If fair distribution becomes one of five criteria for just planning, will it get the emphasis it deserves?