打印

作者

来源

URBAN STUDIES,Vol.54,Issue2,P.456-465

语言

英文

关键字

critical urban geographies; devolution; law; legal geographies; social justice; SPACE; GEOGRAPHY; HEALTH; CITY

作者单位

[Pierce, Joseph] Florida State Univ, Tallahassee, FL 32303 USA. [Martin, Deborah] Clark Univ, Worcester, MA 01610 USA. Pierce, J (reprint author), Florida State Univ, Dept Geog, 113 Collegiate Loop, Tallahassee, FL 32303 USA. E-Mail: jpierce3@fsu.edu

摘要

This commentary examines the conceptual limits of urban justice through the use of legal tools, both generally and in actually existing neoliberal urban contexts. Our interest emerges from previous research on social service siting in a region with legal tools that seem exceptionally friendly to spatial justice due to limits on exclusionary zoning. Conceptually, such powerful legal levers might be expected to mitigate the generally observed tendency towards revanchism in contexts of urban government devolution. However, even given exceptional legal accommodations, we found a spatially concentrated service landscape, mirroring neoliberal market-led framings of 'highest and best use'. Using this prior research as a point of departure, we highlight related findings in the broader literature on the use of the law by urban social justice activists. We argue that even maximally powerful legal protections for justice-oriented actors cannot blunt systematic spatio-political dynamics that lead marketised states towards revanchist outcomes. We call for future research which more explicitly charts the specific frontiers of the potential of the law as a tool for social justice.