Interview themes and results, part 2

Chapter 4 continues to review and discuss the themes raised in the interviews. The themes in this chapter include: the value of diversity and social mixing; special arrangements for elderly people, for young children and their parents; women-friendly city design and planning and gender equality, themes that relate to the value of non-deferential inclusion, communication between people, and political standing. However, many interviewees also accepted that their own city was far from being a city of equals, pointing out serious material and social inequalities, which, they sometimes admitted, they had become accustomed to on a daily basis, even while finding them objectionable from a more abstract perspective

A secure sense of place

Chapter 5 explains the theory of what makes a city a city of equals in detail, interweaving observations and results from the interviews and the previous chapters. Four core values of the city of equals are defined, based on reflection on the interviews and the literature: accessibility to the city’s services is not constituted by the market; a sense of a meaningful life; diversity and social mixing; non-deferential inclusion (that is, being included without having to defer). Finally, a general conception of a city of equals, deriving from the core values, is put forward: a city of equals is a city in which all of its residents feel that they are part of the city’s story, and enjoy a secure functioning of having a sense of place

A critical literature review

In this chapter, the authors undertake a critical literature review. The authors relate to works by political philosophers who have directly discussed equality in the city, but there are few such works. Since the book is written for a wider readership, including social scientists, urban studies scholars, planners, political scientists, and those who are in love with the urban way of life, the literature review is extended in several dimensions: contributions from a broader range of social sciences, urban studies and sociology, and political philosophy. Second, the authors incorporate a broader discourse on justice in the city because justice is only sometimes explicitly distinguished from equality in this literature. Furthermore, the authors look at some contributions which indirectly bear on their questions, even if they do not address them directly. The authors explain what remains to be done and how their work aims to do this

Conclusions and next steps

Chapter 6 explains the authors’ approach towards operationalizing the theory and makes some initial steps and suggestions while pointing to some limitations and further research. While making several suggestions about how to understand each of the above-mentioned core values when applied to policy and how much weight should be given to each theme, the authors also suggest that a specific index has to be devised for each city, to reflect both its own particular circumstances and the interests and values of its city-zens, who should be consulted in the construction of the index for their city. The purpose of the index is not to rank cities in an equality index but for a city to provide an audit of itself, and to set goals and monitor progress

Introduction, motivation, and methods

This chapter begins by raising the book’s main question: what makes some cities attractive to people who think of themselves as progressive, liberal, and egalitarians, and what makes some cities less attractive to such people? In other words, what makes a city (more of) a city of equals? It then explains why this is an interesting question and how equality in the city differs from equality in the state. Finally, the authors explain the method—combining philosophical reasoning with interviews with city dwellers—which the authors adopted in pursuit of their theory of what makes a city a city of equals

City of equals

When we think about equality in the city, we are very likely to think first of the wide and growing divide between rich and poor, in material terms. Yet when we think more about a ‘city of equals’ it becomes apparent that how people feel treated by the city and those around them, and whether they can live according to their values, are much more central. Accordingly, based on the authors’ reflections, a multi-disciplinary literature review, and, distinctively, more than 180 interviews in ten cities in six countries, the book offers an account of a city of equals based on the idea that it should give each of its city-zens a secure sense of place or belonging. Four underlying values structure this account. First, access to the goods and services of the city should not be based purely on the market. Second, each city-zen should be able to live a life they find meaningful. Third, there should be diversity and wide social mixing. Fourth, there should be ‘non-deferential inclusion’, that is, each person in the city should be able to get access to what they are entitled to without being treated as less worthy than others. They should be able to enjoy their rights without bowing and scraping, waiting longer than others, or going through special bureaucratic hurdles. In sum, in a city of equals each person is proud of their city and has the (justified) feeling that their city is proud of (people like) them

Preface: Preface to City of Equals

Consider the photo on this book’s cover. It was taken in 2004 by the Brazilian photographer Tuca Vieira and immediately caused a sensation. Vieira’s goal was to show Brazil’s ‘brutal inequality’, as he explained in an interview in The Guardian (Vieira 2017). It shows part of the Paraisópolis favela in São Paulo, side by side with Morumbi, a very wealthy neighbourhood, in the southwest of the city. Obviously, upon seeing this photo the first thought that comes to mind is the shocking material gap. On one side people enjoy luxury, economic stability, and the prospect of high-quality leisure time (even if they are not seen there to be using it). On the other side, people are struggling just to get by, desperate to find jobs, and in the heavy Brazilian rainstorms their crowded and hastily constructed homes are liable to flooding..

Interview themes and results, part 1

Chapters 3 and 4 summarize the interviews undertaken over a period of four years, and conducted in London, Oxford, New York, Rio de Janeiro, Rotterdam, Amsterdam, Hamburg, Berlin, Jerusalem, and Tel Aviv. Interviewees were asked what makes a city a city of equals and what distorts equality in their cities. Thus, these interviews draw out a series of key, recurring themes. The themes discussed in Chapter 3 are: relational equality; themes that relate to non-market accessibility to goods and services; spatial dimensions of integration, segregation, and their consequences; frequency and variety of public transport; gardening, environmental goods, and environmental bads; housing policies; sense of meaning and place