ABSTRACT
Although the parallel discourses of “the just city” and “the right to the city” have often overlapping agendas, their ultimate objectives are different. An important aspect in the literature on public space has been the difficulty of formulating a universal definition. From the strictly legal and judicial perspective, Kohn proposes to treat it as a “cluster concept”—a term meant to accommodate multiple and often contradictory definitions—and further defines it through the proposed three core components: ownership, accessibility, and intersubjectivity. In the literature on urban justice, and the Just City, it has not been always clear how the five types of social justice concerns—distributive, procedural, interactional, retributive, and restorative—apply specifically to public space. Setha Low and Kurt Iveson attempt to fill that scholarly gap by discussing the five types of social justice concerns in relation to public spaces. The civic program included a system of “instructions” and “guides” for proper behavior in public space and employed a number of mechanisms.
