The Centre for the Just City fosters dialogue between students working on topics such as just transitions, inclusive planning, spatial justice, critical spatial practice and citizen engagement.
Complex Cities graduation studio
Roberto Rocco, Juliana Goncalves and Caroline Newton are part of the graduation studio ‘Planning Complex Cities‘ and have, over the years, mentored students on a wide range of topics, but often all with the shared concern for justice and sustainability. With the centre, we offer a platform through which students can discuss shared concerns and burning questions.
2023 Graduation project
UP2030 URBAN PLANNING AND DESIGN READY FOR 2030
UP2030 is a Horizon Europe project that aims to support cities in driving socio-technical transitions to climate neutrality by integrating technology, urban planning and design.
Within the project, city stakeholders and local authorities are supported and guidedby a consortium of universities, research institutes and technology SMEs to put carbon neutrality on the map of their communities in day-to-day actions and strategic decisions.
TU Delft is a Work Package leader in charge of developing a tool for benchmarking Spatial Justice, in collaboration with municipalities, technology SMEs and universities.
This work entails preparing a pilot strategy and urban design for a historic neighbourhood in the city of Rio de Janeiro in Brazil, where the authorities wish to integrate one of the city’s favelas into the fabric of the neighbourhood in a sustainable, carbon neutral way.
Students involved in this track are expected to contribute to this project by doing research and design that supports the city of Rio and the technical stakeholders in their endeavour. Students are also expected to contribute to the Centre for the Just City’s activities, including the organisation of the symposium “Benchmarking Spatial Justice” in Dec 2023. As an alternative, students are free to choose from one of the project’s city partners pilot projects (Lisbon, Granollers, Milan, Belfast, Rotterdam, Budapest, Zagreb, Thessaloniki, Munster and Istanbul). Participation in the project guarantees access to city data and interaction with city officials and other partners in the consortium.
Furthermore, students in the Honours Programme are invited to do scholarly research on how to measure spatial justice and how to use the concept proactively in policymaking. Students are welcome to use case studies, literature reviews and interviews to unveil the challenges to including spatial justice in policy making and to suggest possible sets of indicators or benchmarks for spatial justice.
If you are a student who is interested in what we do and wants to help shape and imagine just and sustainable urban futures, please get in touch with us.
Examples: Rescaling Climate Induced Migration, City-regions for Cultural Nomads, Geographies of Conflict, Loiter City: Spatial Strategies to redefine a woman’s place in a public realmand Reclaiming (Semi)Public Space.
Call for a manifesto for the just city
Teams of students are invited to draft a Manifesto for the Just City, articulating their visions for cities that are sustainable, fair, and inclusive for all.
This workshop series is a collaborative effort by TU Delft, IHS Erasmus University of Rotterdam, the University of Illinois, Winston-Salem State University, Morgan State University, The Cape Peninsula University of Technology, and many more academic partners from across the globe.
The next Manifesto workshop is on OCTOBER 2023, and registration is OPEN.
TOOLS FOR POST-CONFLICT URBAN RECOVERY
This course seeks to discuss spatial strategies for an integrated urban recovery in post-conflict settings. The course investigates the process of reconstruction and what “building back better” implies: tackling inequalities, strengthening the capacities of local actors and pursuing a green, resilient and inclusive economic recovery anchored on sound spatial planning, design and policy. It focuses on practical tools of spatial planning and strategy-making, land and resettlement policy, building and planning standards for climate adaptation and decarbonisation, policies and programs for ensuring the development of adequate (re)housing, as well as mechanisms to ensure fairness, participation and transparency throughout the urban recovery and reconstruction phase.
This course is organised by TU Delft, in partnership with UNUN The Ukraine_theThe Netherlands Urban Network, RMIT Melbourne and Zuyd University.
The entire course consists of 8 sessions with experts on aspects crucial for the reconstruction is now available ONLINE.
Summer school Planning & design for the just city
The Centre for the Just City, in collaboration with the Department of Urbanism and the Chair of Spatial Planning and Strategy at TU Delft, is delighted to announce the eighth edition of the Summer School Planning and Design with Water for Justice and Sustainability. This year’s Summer School is also supported by the Resilient Delta Initiative.
This Summer School integrates spatial planning, urban design, and environmental technology to address spatial justice, sustainability, climate adaptation, and water management in urban transitions. Participants are invited to put the notion of Spatial Justice central in urban development, understanding and integrating theories and practices that connect spatial justice with sustainability.
*Please note that applications for the 2023 session are now closed.
ONLINE RESOURCES
We contribute to a number of initiatives and courses connected to, or that include Spatial Justice, citizen participation, stakeholder engagement and the governance of just sustainability transitions. Below you will find courses connected to the Centre.
MOOC RETHINK THE CITY
How do you plan future cities? Explore alternative theories and innovative solutions for urban challenges in the Global South.
Learn about today’s urban challenges focusing on developing countries, referred to as the Global South. We will debate the benefits associated with three different themes, going beyond traditional urban strategies and policies:
1. Spatial justice
Having fair, inclusive and healthy urban contexts is one of the greatest challenges of cities in emerging economies.
2. Housing Provision and Management
Increasing demand in the Global South calls for alternative approaches in housing provision and management.
3. Sustainable Urban Transitions
In order to transition from our current (unsustainable) system towards a fair and sustainable future we need to pay attention to the social, economic, and cultural context.
In the course, we will address questions such as:
- Is the ‘just city’ framework applicable to cities with extreme socio-economic inequality?
- Can community-led housing initiatives provide effective solutions for households in need?
- How can the transition towards an environmentally sustainable future also be socially just?
In this architecture and urban planning course, academic urban planning expertise from TU Delft is used to formulate possible answers to these questions, and is applied in a range of challenging case studies from Latin America, MENA region, Sub-Saharan Africa, South-East Asia, , among others. This course offers you a new perspective to understand and analyse the urban challenges of the Global South.
Through a combination of short theoretical lessons, presentation of case studies, testimonies from practitioners and practical assignments you will also learn how to develop a critical perspective about your own urban environment and how to translate this knowledge into analytical tools and innovative urban solutions.
What you’ll learn
- Alternative theories in spatial justice, housing provision and management, and urban resilience.
- Application of analytical tools and innovative solutions to contemporary urban challenges
- Develop a critical perspective about your own urban environment.
- New perspectives to understand and analyse the urban challenges of the Global South.
BLENDED EDUCATION: Strategic Urban Planning: Co-creation for a Just City
Cities are vibrant, complex places serving as the backdrop of lives and livelihoods of many. Yet uneven distribution of infrastructure, wealth and opportunities within urban areas can exclude the vulnerable, exacerbate inequalities and lead to further segregation. Looking at urban planning from a critical perspective, this module links theory to professional planning. It covers themes such as spatial justice, the commons, the right to the city and global trends such as gentrification. It speculates how we – as professionals of the built environment – can begin to design fairer and more inclusive urban spaces for the future.
This set of videos is divided into two main categories:
1. Fundamentals: Concepts / Theoretical knowledge
Covers general concepts related to the concept of the Just City, from a critical perspective and its link to professional planning. Topics included are spatial justice, critical urban theory, urban commons and public goods, and complexity and system theory.
2. Tools: structured in What?, How? and examples
Includes a set of videos that present various methods to analyse and understand current and future urban challenges considering storytelling, observational drawing, and co-creation.
“The academy is not paradise. But learning is a place where paradise can be created. The classroom, with all its limitations, remains a location of possibility. In that field of possibility we have the opportunity to labor for freedom, to demand of ourselves and our comrades, an openness of mind and heart that allows us to face reality even as we collectively imagine ways to move beyond boundaries, to transgress. This is education as the practice of freedom.“
bell hooks (Teaching to Transgress, 1994)
The spatial JusTice of the Commons
UN-Habitat Global Urban Lectures
Visit the UN-Habitat page where the lecture is explained or watch the lecture here: