Conclusion – setting the scene to a framework for assessment

This chapter has examined and critically analysed various conceptions of social justice related to the field of planning within ‘political economy’ and ‘post-structuralist’ literature, as well as the increasingly dominant ‘communicative planning’ approach in planning theory. What has emerged from this analysis is that there are few authors who have provided any tools or approaches that can be operationalised to study actually existing planning practices. Fainstein’s three principles of a ‘Just City’ (2010) does, however, provide one such normative prescription that, whilst embedded in wider theoretical discussions, highlights the importance of substantiating socially just outcomes.

In the previous chapter, it was argued that the existing literature on the impacts of mega-events tends to highlight their questionable distributional outcomes, with limited success in targeting socio-economic inequality. Many past events have been shown not to contribute to social justice or have actually assisted in exacerbating social inequality through such processes as gentrification and/or displacement. In the context of this research, based on the approaches reviewed in this chapter, the first objective of the study was therefore to develop and refine a conceptualisation of ‘socially just planning outcomes’ in the context of mega event-driven urban development. This provides the first research question of this study:

How can socially just planning outcomes be conceptualised within the context of mega event-driven urban development?

To address the first research question, a ‘working definition’ of this conceptualisation shall now be provided which is adapted from Fainstein’s three principles of a ‘Just City’.

It should also be noted that the following chosen criteria from Fainstein’s conceptualisation have been selected through an iterative process, with the number of

53 appropriate criteria narrowed down as the research analysis has been carried out. Thus, only those criteria which can be related to the themes relevant to the planning decision-making process for the LCS planning application have been chosen. The policy principles and associated general criteria to be applied to achieve more socially just outcomes from the planning decision-making process are therefore as follows:

Table 1. ‘Working definition’ of socially just planning outcomes adapted from Fainstein’s (2010) three principles of the ‘Just City’

1. All new housing development should provide units for households with incomes below the median, either on-site or elsewhere

2. Households or business should not be involuntarily relocated for purpose of obtaining economic development or community balance. Adequate compensation provided so dislocated can occupy equivalent dwelling or business site. Reconstruction of neighbourhoods conducted incrementally so interim space can be created for displaced households to remain in same location.

3. Mega projects should face scrutiny, benefitting those on low wages in the form of employment provisions, public amenities and a living wage.

4. Planners should take an active role in deliberative settings in pressing for egalitarian solutions and blocking ones that disproportionately benefit the well off.

Diversity

5. Households should not be required to move for purpose of obtaining diversity but neither should new communities be built that further segregation.

6. Allocating land uses should be undertaken to foster inclusion.

7. Boundaries between districts should be porous.

8. Ample public space should be widely accessible and varied; where public space is provided by private entities, political speech should not be prohibited within the property.

9. To the extent practical and desired by affected populations, land uses should be mixed.

10. Public authorities should assist groups who have historically suffered from discrimination in achieving access to opportunity in housing, education and employment.

Democracy

11. Groups not able to participate directly in decision-making processes should be represented by advocates.

12. Plans should be developed in consultation with the target population if the area is already developed.

13. In planning for as yet uninhabited or sparsely occupied areas, there should be broad consultation that includes representatives of groups currently living outside the affected areas.

Subsequent to the analysis of the planning decision-making process and outcomes for the LCS development provided in Chapters 6 to 10, the criteria provided in Table 1 will be revisited in Chapter 11 to assess whether the LCS’s planning outcomes can be considered ‘socially just’. In turn, in dialectical fashion, the desirability of Fainstein’s

54 normative framework as a basis for decision making in the planning process will also be discussed, with consideration given to the workings of power in the negotiation and rationalisation of LCS development. This will inform wider debates around how a normative framework for socially just planning outcomes can be advanced and the implications this has for the delivery of mega event-driven urban development.

A number of the criteria, particularly those associated with the ‘democracy’ principle, within the normative framework provided in Table 1 reflect the importance of the planning decision-making process in shaping development outcomes. This chapter, notably Section 2.3, has also highlighted how the planning decision-making process is unavoidably subject to the workings of power. This requires further elaboration and it is therefore to the role of power and the individual agency of the planner in the planning decision-making process that constitutes the focus of the following chapter.

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