Title: Identity and Inequality: Race and Space in Planning.
Authors: Heikkila, Eric J
Source: Planning Theory & Practice; Dec2001, Vol. 2 Issue 3, p261-275, 15p

Abstract: Planners' concerns for spatial equity and for racial equity are expressed tangibly through legislation designed to promote regional development, enterprise zones, affirmative action, and in other spheres of practice. Equity concerns take on heightened meaning where issues of space and race intersect, such as inner-city revitalization or environmental justice. This article explores the underlying basis for issues of social justice in the context of race and space, leading to two principle findings. First, there is a tight correspondence between the role of race and space in the social construction of identity and corresponding formulations of social justice. This point is demonstrated using five diverse examples from the realm of practice. Second, there is a danger of misapplication of principles of social justice where the implicit dimensions of one problem sphere are applied to another. This point is illustrated with two examples; a defunct World Bank proposal to marketize waste disposal and an effort in California to restore racial equity in public university admissions through spatially mediated interventions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Planning Theory, Vol. 5, No. 1, 31-50 (2006)
DOI: 10.1177/1473095206061020
© 2006 SAGE Publications
Deep Difference: Diversity, Planning and Ethics
Vanessa Watson

University of Cape Town, South Africa; watson@eng.uct.ac.za

The article suggests that planning's current sources of moral philosophy are no longer an entirely satisfactory guide on issues of ethical judgement in a context of deepening social difference and an increasingly hegemonic market rationality. A focus on process in planning and a relative neglect of product, together with the assumption that such processes can be guided by a universal set of deontological values shaped by the liberal tradition, are rendered particularly problematic in a world which is characterized by deepening social and economic differences and inequalities and by the aggressive promotion of neoliberal values by particular dominant nation-states. The notion of introducing values into deliberative processes is explored.

Key Words: conflict • ethics • judgement • social difference • values