Justice and the American Metropolis

2011

Clarissa Rile Hayward and Todd Swanstrom, editors

Returning social justice to the center of urban policy debates

Today’s American cities and suburbs are the sites of “thick injustice”—unjust power relations that are densely concentrated as well as opaque and seemingly intractable. Identifying these often invisible problems, this volume addresses foundational questions about what justice requires in the contemporary metropolis, pointing the way to a metropolis in which social justice figures prominently in any definition of success.

This excellent collection of essays on topics ranging from inequality in cities and suburbs to redevelopment planning, voting rights, and institution-building to help poor people, particularly in the suburbs, is a welcome addition to recent work on socialspatial justice.Hayward and Swanstrom have brought together a fine group of scholars.

Choice

Today’s American cities and suburbs are the sites of “thick injustice”—unjust power relations that are deeply and densely concentrated as well as opaque and seemingly intractable. Thick injustice is hard to see, to assign responsibility for, and to change.

Identifying these often invisible and intransigent problems, this volume addresses foundational questions about what justice requires in the contemporary metropolis. Essays focus on inequality within and among cities and suburbs; articulate principles for planning, redevelopment, and urban political leadership; and analyze the connection between metropolitan justice and institutional design. In a world that is progressively more urbanized, and yet no clearer on issues of fairness and equality, this book points the way to a metropolis in which social justice figures prominently in any definition of success.

Contributors: Susan S. Fainstein, Harvard U; Richard Thompson Ford, Stanford U; Gerald Frug, Harvard U; Loren King, Wilfrid Laurier U; Margaret Kohn, U of Toronto; Stephen Macedo, Princeton U; Douglas W. Rae, Yale U; Clarence N. Stone, George Washington U; Margaret Weir, U of California, Berkeley; Thad Williamson, U of Richmond.

Clarissa Rile Hayward is associate professor of political science at Washington University in St. Louis.

Todd Swanstrom is Des Lee Professor of Community Collaboration and Public Policy Administration at the University of Missouri, St. Louis.

This excellent collection of essays on topics ranging from inequality in cities and suburbs to redevelopment planning, voting rights, and institution-building to help poor people, particularly in the suburbs, is a welcome addition to recent work on socialspatial justice.Hayward and Swanstrom have brought together a fine group of scholars.

Choice

Discusses how difficult it is in the US now to see injustice as something that can be understood
and changed. One step is clear perception and analysis, as demonstrated by the articles in this collection.

Catholic Library World

As the empirical evidence of spiraling economic and racial inequality mounts, this book provides a welcome corrective to the lamentable tendency among scholars and commentators to neglect issues of justice, power, and equality.

New Political Science

A breath of fresh air. . . The essays in Justice and the American Metropolis, a mixture of theoretical and empirical, raise a variety of important questions that perhaps set the stage for more sustained and serious scholarly concern in political science.

Kent E. Portney, Perspectives on Politics

Generates a deep understanding of the challenges American cities have faced.

Dianne Pinderhughes, Perspectives on Politics

Compelling and significant.

Jody Miller, Perspectives on Politics

Displays a unity that many edited collections lack... The book makes an important contribution to public debate, and it deserves a wide audience.

Journal of Regional Science

Justice and the American Metropolis provides a timely exploration of ways of making injustice
in our urban areas more visible, and putting justice more squarely in the forefront of deliberations on urban policy and practice in this country.

Journal of Urban Affairs

Hayward’s and Swanstrom’s edited book, Justice and the American Metropolis, is an extremely though-provoking and timely set of papers by a set of distinguished contributors.

City & Community

Contents

Acknowledgments
Introduction: Thick Injustice
Clarissa Rile Hayward and Todd Swanstrom

I. The Roots of Injustice in the American Metropolis
1.Property-Owning Plutocracy: Inequality and American Localism
Stephen Macedo
2.Public Reason and the Just City
Loren King
3.Public Space in the Progressive Era
Margaret Kohn

II. Rethinking Metropolitan Inequality
4.Two Cheers for Very Unequal Incomes: Toward Social Justice in Central Cities
Douglas W. Rae
5.Beyond the Equality–Efficiency Tradeoff
Clarence N. Stone

III. Planning for Justice
6.Redevelopment Planning and Distributive Justice in the American Metropolis
Susan S. Fainstein
7.Justice, the Public Sector, and Cities: Relegitimating the Activist State
Thad Williamson

IV. Justice and Institutions
8.Voting and Justice
Gerald Frug
9.The Color of Territory: How Law and Borders Keep America Segregated
Richard Thompson Ford
10.Creating Justice for the Poor in the New Metropolis
Margaret Weir

Contributors
Index