Spatial Justice (the Basics)

Spatial Justice: The Basics offers a concise and accessible introduction to spatial justice as both a theoretical framework and a practical agenda for urban transformation. It examines how urban space is produced, contested, and governed, and how it is implicated in broader dynamics of inequality, recognition, and participation.

Spatial Justice: The Basics offers a concise and accessible introduction to spatial justice as both a theoretical framework and a practical agenda for urban transformation. It examines how urban space is produced, contested, and governed, and how it is implicated in broader dynamics of inequality, recognition, and participation. Drawing on key thinkers such as Henri Lefebvre, Nancy Fraser, Iris Marion Young, Edward Soja, and Susan Fainstein, the book articulates spatial justice through its distributive, procedural, and recognitional dimensions, while also tracing its intellectual genealogy across critical theory, planning thought, and Southern urbanism.

The book centres spatial planning as a normative, political, and ethical practice capable of fostering solidarity, democratising decision-making, and addressing structural injustices. Real-world examples from Indonesia, Colombia, Brazil, the US, and more illustrate how spatial justice is negotiated in practice, while discussions of neoliberal governance, democratic backsliding, and epistemic justice ground the analysis in urgent global challenges.

Designed for upper-level undergraduates, postgraduates, and early-career professionals in planning, geography, architecture, and related fields, the book includes a detailed glossary of key terms, visual diagrams, and analytical tables to support critical engagement and classroom use.

Preface

1. Introduction: A Tale of Space and Injustice

2. Why Justice?

3. Justice and Urban Space: Urban Space as a Site of Dispute and Cooperation

4. Justice and Spatial Planning

5. Mapping Spatial Justice: Key Thinkers and Milestones

6. Three Dimensions of Spatial Justice

7. A Spatial Justice Framework

8. Back to Paraisópolis: Spatial Justice in Practice

9. Conclusion: Toward the Just City

Glossary of Key Terms

References

Index

Roberto Rocco is an associate professor of spatial planning and strategy at the Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment at TU Delft. His research focuses on the governance of the built environment, including its formal and informal dimensions, as well as the governance of sustainability transitions, with particular emphasis on spatial justice as a core dimension of these transitions.