Seeking Spatial Justice

Can a biggie get more? The role of regional centres in the process of absorption of European funds in Polish voivodeships

“…The above demonstrates a change in the Polish regional policy, not intended at the programming stage, especially in the scale of concentration of the EU funds. This complies with a change in the regional policy paradigm, hence with the transition from equalisation to efficiency (Bachtler 2001;Soja 2010;Storper 2011).…”

“…As areas of development polarisation, they are of special interest to urban policy, both in its internal and external dimensions (Foreman-Peck & Gripaios 1977;Townsend 1977;Reshaping Economic Geography 2009;Hidle & Leknes 2014;Krajowa Polityka Miejska 2015). The changing paradigm of the cohesion policy -departing from equalisation in favour of efficiency -serves to justify the developmental intervention directed to regional centres, which in the equalisation model were perceived as growth poles requiring allocation of smaller funds (Bachtler 2001;Soja 2010;Storper 2011). This switch is justified by reinforcing the impact of regional centres on their surroundings, which means paying more attention to the external effect of urban policy, especially by strengthening territorial cohesion (Zaucha & Komornicki 2015).…”

Considering daily mobility for a more comprehensive understanding of contextual effects on social inequalities in health: A conceptual proposal

“…As previously suggested, high mobility is not an end in itself; it does not automatically equate with social inclusion, better health or high-quality activity settings. As per Soja (2010), resources and opportunities will always be somewhat unequally distributed across geographic space. Simply promoting increased mobility for all would not redress this unequal distribution (Jiron, 2007), and would leave unaddressed the social drivers and rules underlying inequalities in mobility patterns, which we proposed, lie in both mobility potential and individual agency.…”

“…It follows that mobility potential is unequally distributed across social groups (Kaufmann et al, 2004, Manderscheid, 2009, Weiss, 2005, Gough, 2008. In fact, the distribution of resources and of physical environment characteristics are neither socially nor politically neutral (Harvey, 1973, Soja, 2010. For instance, mobility opportunities such as public transit routes, bike paths, and access to highways may not be distributed equally across urban spaces (Miciukiewicz and Vigar, 2012), though this may depend on the layout of a given city (Fuller et al, 2013).…”

Building a Meta-Framework to ‘Address’ Spatial Quality

“…be/spindus/). Dimensions and concepts of spatial quality in the literature include ideas about 'good city form ' (Lynch ([1981]1984)), 'good design' (Sternberg 2000), 'universal design', 'human scale', 'good architecture', 'urban quality' (Chapman and Larkham 1999;Trip 2007), 'delight' (Wotton 1624) on the urban design side; 'planning performance' (Friedmann 2004), 'effective planning process', 'good planning process' (Conroy and Berke 2004), 'quality planning' (Creedy et al 2007), 'place quality' (Healey 2004) and 'experiential quality of urban environment' or 'livable city' (Southworth 2003) in planning; 'spatial justice' (Soja 2010), 'fulfillment of human needs' (Moulaert 2009) or 'inclusive design' (Lang 1990) in social innovation in territorial development reading (Van Dyck and Van den Broeck 2013).…”