ABSTRACT
In contemporary cities, which by their very nature are open to a diversity of perspectives, lifestyles, and choices, we can start by considering an ordinary sense of justice. Examining the structures that dictate what is normal, what is comfortable, where the risk lies, and how this is internalized and operationalized within the habits and routines of the daily life of urban public spaces, may get us farther? Ordinary justice can exist within a context of local democracy, as an ethical conception that undergirds local governance as well as social and cultural association. From a pragmatic perspective, formal, delimited and extraordinary forms of justice depend upon a sense of ordinary justice. A pragmatic approach to urban sustainability and justice, then, entails a search for the cash value of the city for urbanites committed to sustainability and justice, in terms of the interplay of cities, and particularly the collective experiences that we have in the urban public realm.
