20, 27, OCTOBER 2025/ 03, 10 NOVEMBER 2025
18:00 (CET) (A link will be sent to participants ahead of the sessions)
Manifesto 2024
The workshop “Manifesto for the Just City”, now in its sixth edition, is a digital lecture and debate series composed of four online sessions with leading academics and practitioners in the fields of urban theory, urban planning and spatial justice. Upon participation in the online lecture series, teams of students are invited to draft a Manifesto for the Just City, expressing what their visions for cities that are sustainable, fair and inclusive for all.
This activity is organised by TU Delft, in collaboration with IHS Erasmus University of Rotterdam (The Netherlands), the University of Illinois, the Winston-Salem State University, Morgan State University (US), The Cape Peninsula University of Technology (South Africa) and more.
This activity is supported by Pakhuis de Zwijger, a unique cultural organisation which opened its doors in 2006 and has grown to be an independent platform for and by the city of Amsterdam and its inhabitants.
THE ACTIVITY
We invite you and your colleagues to work in groups of 3-5 people to write a MANIFESTO of no more than 1000 words laying out your vision for the Just City. The manifesto can be written in any language, as long as a good English translation is provided by the participants.
In order to help you write your manifesto, we invite you and your group of fellow students to take part in a 4-part online lecture series organised by TU Delft and several partner universities online.
In each session, you will have the opportunity to debate with like-minded people from other universities and to put your ideas into writing. At the end of this exercise, we hope you will have enough ideas and material to write a manifesto with your group.
The manifestos will be published in an open access book. Previous Manifestos have been released in two books published by the Delft University of Technology Open Source books (see below).
All participants submitting a manifesto and taking part in the online lectures will be provided with a certificate of participation by the Delft University of Technology.
For inquiries, please contact Roberto Rocco at r.c.rocco@tudelft.nl
The 2025 programme is in preparation. SESSIONS WILL take place on 20, 27 OCTOBER and 03, 10 NOVEMBER at 18:00 (CET)
Listen to Juliana Gonçalves explain the importance of the manifestos
Registrations are open!
Call for Manifestos
A MANIFESTO FOR THE JUST CITY
The world is facing a number of simultaneous intertwined shocks that affect us all: climate change, environmental collapse, war, pandemics, democratic erosion and growing inequality are just some of the most pressing public challenges we must face together.
At the core of our actions to address these challenges is the idea of JUSTICE. Justice is what allows us to live together in society and to cooperate with each other. For political philosopher John Rawls “Justice is the first virtue of social institutions, as truth is of systems of thought. A theory however elegant and economical must be rejected or revised if it is untrue; likewise laws and institutions, no matter how efficient and well-arranged, must be reformed or abolished if they are unjust”.
In our rapidly urbanising world, it seems logical to seek for the JUST CITY, a city where justice can be expressed in the fair distribution of the burdens and benefits of our life together, and where all can lead a happy fruitful life, and where democracy cab flourish.
But for us, the Just City is not only a place that allows all its citizens to live a healthy and accomplished life, but also a city that allows the planet to regenerate itself and a city that fosters civic life and democracy, affording all its inhabitants the RIGHT TO THE CITY.
In order to collect ideas and discuss ways to teach and learn how to make our cities more just, sustainable and inclusive, we want to hear from students from all over the world.
We wish to invite you and your friends to write a manifesto of no more than 1000 words laying out your vision for the Just City. The manifesto should be written in groups of between 3 and 6 students from any discipline.
The manifesto can be written in any language, as long as a good English translation is provided by the participants. The manifesto can also be illustrated (remember, images and text are complementary). We will only accept original pictures, drawings or illustrations produced by the participants (please, be mindful of copyrights!).
In order to help you write your manifesto, we invite you and your group of fellow students to take part in a 4-part online workshop online. Each part of this activity will provide you with new ideas about key topics of urban development, like a mini-online course. In each session, you will have the opportunity to debate with like-minded people from other universities and will be invited to write short paragraphs with them. At the end of this process, we hope you will have enough ideas and material to write a trailblazing manifesto with your group.
All manifestos will be published in an open access book.
All participants submitting a manifesto and taking part in at least two online lectures will be provided with a certificate of participation by the Delft University of Technology.
In order to participate, you need to:
1. Fill out the online form (black button on this page)
2. Find a group of colleagues from your university or from other universities. Groups must have a maximum of 6 participants. Groups can include members of different universities.
3. There is no limit to the number of groups from the same university.
4. Get together with your group and discuss: what should be in your manifesto? Maybe here you could make a start! (We will send you a “manual” on how to write a manifesto later on).
5. Take part in the four-part course organised by TU Delft, which will take place over four Mondays in OCTOBER 2024 (a link will be sent to you).
5.Submit your final text before the 1st of January 2025.
MANIFESTO FOR THE JUST CITY BOOK SERIES
(free download)
“The function of education is to teach one to think intensively and to think critically. Intelligence plus character – that is the goal of true education.”
Martin Luther King Jr.
Watch all lecture on our you tube channel
Manifesto for the just city
past speakers
2024
Catalina ORTIZ
Professor of Critical Pedagogy at UCL’s Development Planning Unit.
Catalina Ortiz is a Colombian urbanist and educator passionate about spatial justice. She holds a BA in Architecture from the Universidad Nacional de Colombia, where she also completed a master’s degree in Urban and Regional Studies. She earned her PhD in Urban Planning and Policy from the University of Illinois at Chicago as a Fulbright scholar. In 2015, she joined the Bartlett Development Planning Unit at UCL, and since 2024, she has been the Director of the UCL Urban Lab. With over two decades of experience, Catalina’s work spans teaching, research, and consultancy focused on urban projects and spatial planning, mainly in Latin America. She has collaborated with international organizations, national, and local governments, serving as a senior consultant for the Inter-American Development Bank, the Cities Alliance Program, the Informal City Requalification Foundation (ReCI), and the Future Cities programme by the UK Foreign Commonwealth Office. Prior to UCL, she was the Urban and Regional Planning Director at the School of Architecture, Universidad Nacional de Colombia (Medellin). She has also held visiting fellowships at the Latin Lab, GSAPP, Columbia University, and DUSP, MIT.
Efadul Huq
Assistant Professor of Environmental Science and Policy at Smith College.
Efadul’s engaged research looks at relationships between decolonial and insurgent planning practices and social-ecological transitions that shape livelihoods and ecosystems across urbanizing regions. Currently, he is co-leading an international consortium for a wetland restoration project in Dhaka. He is a member of Lokayoto Biddaloy, and research fellow with the River and Delta Research Center. His interdisciplinary teaching span areas of environmental justice planning, community development, and transnational political ecology with a geographic focus on Bangladesh and the United States.
ALVARO SEVILLA-BUITRAGO
Associate Professor of Urban Planning and Urban Studies at the School of Architecture, Universidad Politécnica de Madrid (UPM).
Alvaro is the author of Against the Commons: A Radical History of Urban Planning published in 2022 by the University of Minnesota Press. His work engages with issues of urban space, governance, and social justice. In Against the Commons, Álvaro critiques the historical transformation of shared urban spaces, arguing that what is often framed as “common” or public space has, in reality, been shaped by exclusionary practices and mechanisms of control that suppress community autonomy and grassroots social life.
Álvaro’s writing and teaching focus on the social and political implications of planning and urban processes, building upon and extending various critical traditions in the fields of urban studies and geography, planning history and theory, urban political economy and radical history. His main research interests include the politics of planning and urbanization and their role in the rise and development of capitalism; spatial dynamics of commoning and dispossession; the geographies of social reproduction and everyday life; planetary urbanization; and more.
SteFANIA MILAN
Professor of Critical Data Studies, University of Amsterdam
Stefania Milan is a Professor of Critical Data Studies at the Department of Media Studies, University of Amsterdam. She was also Faculty Associate (2020-2022) at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society of Harvard University. Her work explores the interplay between digital technology and data, political participation, and governance, focusing on infrastructure and agency.
Stefania leads the project “Citizenship and standard-setting in digital networks” (in-sight.it), funded by the Dutch Research Council. Stefania holds a PhD in Political and Social Science from the European University Institute (2009). Before joining the University of Amsterdam, she worked at, among others, the Citizen Lab (University of Toronto), Tilburg University, and the Central European University.
2023
NURHAN ABUJIDI
ZUYD UNIVERSITY of Applied Sciences in the Netherlands
Nurhan Abujidi is an Associate Professor at Zuyd University of Applied Sciences, where she is the Head of the Smart Urban Redesign research centre. Her work within the research centre focuses on the ambition to contribute to the region’s energy-neutral, circular and vital neighbourhoods. Abujidi was a professor in international, post-graduate and Master’s programmes at the Belgian universities Katholieke Universiteit Leuven and Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB) and other Spanish universities. Her expertise includes urban renewal, public space revitalisation and tactical urbanism. Her scholarship on Palestinian urbanisation and conflict helps us understand the conflict in Palestine/ Israel.
Martine Doppen
Martine, is an influential, energetic activist who fights for a clean and fair world, including at Milieudefensie. This young queer woman has an idealistic vision of climate justice and radical justice.
Martine was born 27 years ago in a small village in the Achterhoek region. Eighteen years later, as a student in Amsterdam, she found the space to speak out against gender inequality, racism and the climate crisis. While studying International Public Health at the VU, she worked on innovative projects in-home care. She set up a training programme on climate justice and worked on the climate case against Shell. She is one of the boosters of the 2019 climate march and supported school strikes.
TITUS KALOKI
Friedrich Ebert Stiftung (Fes) Kenya Office
Titus Kaloki is Programme Coordinator at FES Kenya Office, where he leads the Just City programme, which engages the concept of a social and inclusive just city to facilitate innovative discussions among political decision-makers, civil society representatives and others on issues such as affordable housing, fair and clean public transport, and meaningful civic engagement in urban spaces.
MONTAGU MURRAY
Montagu Murray attained a DD degree in Systematic Theology from the University of Pretoria, South Africa. His academic studies included pre-graduate studies in Minnesota in the USA and post-graduate research at the universities of Utrecht and Leiden in the Netherlands. He is a Research Associate of the Faculty of Theology of the University of Pretoria. He is particularly interested intransdisciplinary approaches to poverty alleviation, quality of life improvement and sustainable lifestyles. He is a Director of the Nova Institute. This not-for-profit organisation endeavours to co-create, with household and networks, ways to improve the quality of life of low-income households in Southern Africa.
FAIZA DARKHANI
Afghan Academic & Activist
Faiza Darkhani is a dedicated environmentalist and women’s rights advocate from Afghanistan. She previously served as the Director of the National Environmental Protection Agency and Assistant Professor at Badakhshan University. She graduated from the Faculty of Design and Architecture at UMP Malaysia. Her impactful work earned her a spot on BBC’s “100 Influential Women around the World” list in 2021. She continues her work as a researcher in Germany and has been actively volunteering for women’s rights and environmental causes.
2022
HIBA BOU AKAR
Columbia University
Hiba Bou Akar is an Assistant Professor at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation. Her research focuses on planning in post-conflict cities, the question of urban security and violence, and the role of religious political organisations in the making of cities. She has also worked as an architect and urban planner in Beirut.
Vanesa Castán-Broto
Professor of Climate Urbanism at the Urban Institute (UI) in the University of Sheffield
Vanesa Castán-Broto is a professorial fellow at the Urban Institute, University of Sheffield. In 2016, she received the Philip Leverhulme Prize for contributions to Geography. In 2013, she received a United Nations Award for Lighthouse Activities that contribute to fighting climate change with a focus on the urban poor. Her previous books include An Urban Politics of Climate Change and the edited collection Participatory Planning for Climate Compatible Development. She was also a contributing author to UN-Habitat’s 2016 World Cities Report.
Gynna MIllan
Universidad del Valle, Cali, Colombia
Gynna Millan Franco is an urban designer and researcher specializing on smart cities in the global south, with a focus on informal settlements. Gynna’s work incorporates participatory approaches such as video, design, and photography. She works as a postdoctoral researcher at Colombia’s Universidad del Valle on the project “Building Equitable Urban Futures in Transition Areas in Cali and Havana (GREAT).” She has taught at the Polytechnic University of Valencia, University College London, and the National University of Colombia as a visiting professor.
CLARISSA FREITAS
Associate Professor at the Department of Architecture and Urbanism, Universidade Federal do Ceará.
Clarissa Freitas is a scholar in the field of Urban Planning affiliated with the Federal University of Ceará (UFC) in Fortaleza, Brazil. Professor Freitas works at the intersection of the political economy of urbanisation and urban design policies. Recently, she has been researching on the challenges that informal settlements pose to planning policies. She spent the 2015/2016 academic year as a visiting professor at . Since 2018, she has served as the academic coordinator of the Graduate Program in Architecture, Urbanism, and Design at UFC. She teaches undergrad and grad courses on Landscape Planning, Urban Design, and Planning Theory, and contributes to urban movements’ struggles for the Right to the City.
2021
ROMOLA SANYAL
Associate Professor in Urban Geography at London School of Economics.
Dr Romola Sanyal is Associate Professor in Urban Geography at the London School of Economics and Political Science. She joined the Department of Geography and Environment in 2013 having held lectureships in Planning at Newcastle University (2010-2012) and University College London at the Development Planning Unit (2012-2013). She has also held the position of inaugural Postdoctoral Fellow at the Chao Centre for Asian Studies at Rice University (2008-2009) and been a Visiting Fellow at the Open University (2009-2010). She has a PhD in Architecture from the University of California, Berkeley, an MSc in Geography from LSE and a B.A in City and Regional Planning from the University of California, Berkeley.
Faranak Miraftab
Professor of Urban and Regional Planning at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.
Faranak Miraftab is an Iranian-American urban planner and scholar known for her critical work on participatory planning, urban informality, and social justice. A leading figure in the radical and feminist planning traditions, she has significantly contributed to understanding how grassroots struggles reshape urban governance and citizenship. Miraftab is best known for introducing the influential concepts of “invited” and “invented” spaces of participation, which distinguish between state-sanctioned arenas for civic engagement and those created by marginalised groups themselves. Her work critiques neoliberal urbanism and highlights the emancipatory potential of insurgent practices in the Global South.
Among her most cited contributions is the article Invited and Invented Spaces of Participation (2004), which offers a feminist and decolonial critique of participatory governance under neoliberal regimes. In her later work, such as Insurgent Planning (2009), she developed the concept of insurgent planning to describe the grassroots, often informal, forms of urban transformation enacted by those excluded from formal institutions. Miraftab’s scholarship foregrounds the epistemic and procedural dimensions of spatial justice, insisting on the legitimacy of alternative knowledges, ontologies, and political practices.
MONA FAWAZ
Professor of Urban Studies and Planning, American University of Beirut.
Mona Fawaz is a Lebanese urban scholar and activist whose work focuses on housing rights, informality, and the politics of urban planning in the Middle East. A professor of urban studies and planning at the American University of Beirut, she is co-founder of the Beirut Urban Lab and a leading voice in critical urbanism from the Global South. Fawaz has written extensively on postwar reconstruction, property regimes, and spatial injustice in Beirut, advocating for inclusive planning practices and the right to the city. Her work bridges academic research and civic engagement, foregrounding planning as a tool for social change.
Her main contributions lie in exposing how urban planning systems in contexts like Lebanon entrench inequality through informal practices, legal ambiguity, and sectarian governance. Fawaz has critically examined the role of real estate speculation and post-conflict reconstruction in displacing vulnerable communities, while advancing frameworks for participatory planning and housing justice rooted in local knowledge and civic mobilisation.
MARIANA FIX
Professor at FAUUSP, University of São Paulo.
Mariana Fix is a Brazilian urbanist, architect, and scholar whose work critically examines the political economy of urban development in Latin America. She is a prominent voice in the study of housing, urban inequality, and real estate finance. Fix has collaborated extensively with critical urban theorists in Brazil and internationally, contributing to debates on neoliberal urbanism, gentrification, and the commodification of land.
Her main contributions centre on analysing how financial capital shapes urban space, particularly through land speculation and state-supported real estate projects. In her influential work Parceiros da Exclusão, she critically dissects public-private partnerships in São Paulo, revealing how state policies facilitate private accumulation while deepening urban exclusion. Fix’s research bridges academic theory with urban struggles, offering tools for rethinking urban governance in pursuit of greater spatial justice.
2020
LEILANI FARHA
The Shift, Housing Rights
Leilani Farha is a Canadian human rights lawyer and global advocate for housing justice. She served as the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Right to Adequate Housing from 2014 to 2020, during which she drew international attention to the housing crisis as a global human rights issue. Farha is currently the Global Director of The Shift, a worldwide initiative co-founded with the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights and United Cities and Local Governments (UCLG), which frames housing not as a commodity, but as a human right central to dignity, security, and community.
Her main contributions lie in repositioning housing within the international legal and policy agenda as a matter of accountability, inequality, and financialisation. Farha has been a leading critic of how global capital, private equity, and financial institutions treat housing as an asset class, leading to displacement, unaffordability, and homelessness. She has worked with governments, civil society, and grassroots movements to promote rights-based housing frameworks, pushing for regulatory reforms and legal protections for tenants and marginalised populations. Through advocacy, public speaking, and film (notably the documentary the Push), Farha has transformed the discourse on housing into a key terrain of human rights and spatial justice.
efrat cohen-bar
BIMKOM, Planners for Planning Rights
Efrat Cohen-Bar is an Israeli urban planner, human rights advocate, and Co-Executive Director of BIMKOM – Planners for Planning Rights, a non-governmental organisation founded in 1999 by architects and planners committed to promoting democracy and human rights through spatial planning. With a background in law and urban policy, Cohen-Bar has worked extensively at the intersection of planning, social justice, and the rights of marginalised communities, including Palestinians in Area C of the West Bank, unrecognised Bedouin villages in the Negev, and under-served neighbourhoods within Israel.
Her main contributions lie in exposing how planning systems are used as tools of control and exclusion, particularly in contested and occupied territories. Under her leadership, BIMKOM has challenged discriminatory zoning, housing demolitions, and the denial of infrastructure and planning rights to non-Jewish communities. Through research, legal advocacy, and participatory planning processes, Cohen-Bar has advanced the idea that planning must be a rights-based practice rooted in equality, transparency, and civic participation. Her work exemplifies how spatial professionals can engage critically with state power and contribute to the protection and empowerment of vulnerable populations.
STIJN OOSTERLYNCK
Professor of Urban Sociology at the University of Antwerp
Stijn Oosterlynck is a Belgian sociologist and Professor of Urban Sociology at the University of Antwerp, where he chairs the Centre for Research on Environmental and Social Change (CRESC) and leads the Antwerp Urban Studies Institute. His research and teaching focus on urban transformation, poverty, migration, and socio-spatial inequality. He teaches courses on urban studies, social inequality, and the dynamics of cities as sites of both division and solidarity.
Oosterlynck’s main contributions centre on how urban contexts can foster solidarity in diversity, particularly through what he terms ‘transformative solidarity practices’. He has studied how local actors—including citizens, civil society, and public institutions—co-create inclusive spaces that address social and economic marginalisation, especially in superdiverse cities. His work critically engages with spatial justice, welfare regimes, and the restructuring of cities under neoliberalism, often highlighting how bottom-up initiatives can challenge fragmentation and contribute to democratic urban futures. As both a scholar and public intellectual, Oosterlynck has helped shape debates on inclusive urbanism in Belgium and beyond.
TAINÁ DE PAULA
Councilwoman, City of Rio de Janeiro
Tainá de Paula is a Brazilian architect, urban planner, and activist deeply engaged in the fight for spatial justice and the right to the city. She currently serves as Secretary of Environment and Climate for the City of Rio de Janeiro, and is a licensed city councillor representing the Workers’ Party (PT). With a background in cultural heritage preservation and a Master’s degree in Urbanism, de Paula has long been active in movements for racial, gender, and housing justice in Brazil’s urban peripheries.
Her main contributions focus on promoting inclusive urban governance by centring the voices of historically marginalised communities—particularly Black, Indigenous, and favela residents—in planning and environmental policy. She advocates for a feminist, anti-racist, and ecologically grounded approach to urban development, and has worked to democratise access to urban resources such as land, mobility, and green infrastructure. Both within and outside institutional politics, Tainá de Paula embodies a practice of planning as activism, bridging grassroots mobilisation with transformative public policy.