Social Justice and the City

Chapter two: Social processes and spatial form: (2) The redistribution of real income in an urban system

Chapter 2 Social Processes and Spatial Form: 2 The Redistribution of Real Income in an Urban System Any overall strategy for dealing with urban systems must contain and reconcile policies designed to change the spatial form of the city (by which is meant the location of objects such as houses, plant, transport links, and the like) with policies concerned to affect the social processes which go on in the city (i.e., the social structures and activities which link people with people, organizations with people, employment opportunities with employees, welfare recipients with services, and so on). Ideally, we should be able to harmonize these policies to achieve some coherent social objective. We are far from such a capability at the present time. In chapter i I tried to examine some of the difficulties in achieving it. These arise partly from the inherent complexity of the city system itself, partly from our traditional and rather myopic disciplinary approach to a system which cries out for interdisciplinary treatment, and also from serious methodological and philosophical problems which stand in the way of a full integration of spatial form and social process in the context of urban systems analysis. When it comes to formulating strategies and policies, however, there is another dimension to the problem—that of making explicit what we mean by the phrase "a coherent social objective". By and large, the social planner and forecaster tends to dodge this last issue because it involves a set of social, political and ethical judgements upon which it will be very difficult to obtain general agreement. The trouble with merely dodging the issue is that judgements are inevitably implied by a decision, 50 Chapter 2 Social Processes andSpatialForm: 2 The Redistribution of Real Income in an Urban System Any overall strategy for dealing with urban systems must contain and reconcile policies designed to change the spatial form of the city (by which is meant the location of objects such as house~, plant, transport links, and the like) with policies concerned to affect the social processes which go on in the city (i.e., the social structures and activities which link peoplewith people, organizations with people, employment opportunities with employees, welfare recipients with services, and so on). Ideally, we should be able to harmonize these policies to achieve some coherent social objective. We are far from such a capability at the present time. In chapter I I tried to examine some of the difficulties in achieving it. These arise paltly from the inherent complexity of the city system itself, partly from our traditional and rather myopic disciplinary approach to a system which cries out for interdisciplinary treatment, and also from serious methodological and philosophical problems which stand in the way of a full integration of spatial form and social process in the context of urban systems analysis. When it comes to formulating strategies and policies, however, there is another dimension to the problem-that of making explicit what we mean by the phrase "a coherent social objective". By and large, the social planner and forecaster tends to dodge this last issue because it involves a set of social, political and ethical judgements upon which it will be very difficult to obtain general agreement. The trouble with merely dodging the issue is that judgements are inevitably implied by a decision, 50 Chapter 2 Social Processes andSpatialForm: 2 The Redistribution of Real Income in an Urban System Any overall strategy for dealing with urban systems must contain and reconcile policies designed to change the spatial form of the city (by which is meant the location of objects such as house~, plant, transport links, and the like) with policies concerned to affect the social processes which go on in the city (i.e., the social structures and activities which link peoplewith people, organizations with people, employment opportunities with employees, welfare recipients with services, and so on). Ideally, we should be able to harmonize these policies to achieve some coherent social objective. We are far from such a capability at the present time. In chapter I I tried to examine some of the difficulties in achieving it. These arise paltly from the inherent complexity of the city system itself, partly from our traditional and rather myopic disciplinary approach to a system which cries out for interdisciplinary treatment, and also from serious methodological and philosophical problems which stand in the way of a full integration of spatial form and social process in the context of urban systems analysis. When it...