Social justice and transition in the urban context

The course is structured around 14 sessions that combine theoretical insight and empirical investigation. It introduces students to key justice theories (Rawls, Sen, Fraser, Young) and applies them to the analysis of urban processes such as housing, mobility, infrastructure development, and ecological transition. Particular attention is paid to how technical systems, material infrastructures, and spatial arrangements participate in shaping unequal urban conditions and influence the possibilities for just and inclusive transitions.

Through thematic modules, the course covers topics such as green gentrification, energy precarity, mobility justice, responsible densification, participatory planning, and the management of urban commons. It explores the social implications of infrastructural and architectural decisions in contexts marked by climate urgency and resource constraints. Urban case studies from both the Global North and South provide a comparative framework to evaluate the role of planning, governance, and technical expertise in shaping urban futures. Students are invited to question how material configurations such as transportation networks, energy infrastructures, building standards, and public space arrangements can produce or mitigate social inequalities and environmental injustices. Students will gain tools to critically engage with the spatial, technical, and political dimensions of their practice, and to design solutions that are both ecologically responsible and socially inclusive.

Provisional synopsis  (subject to change)

1. Session 1 General Introduction
2. Session 2 Classical Theories of Social Justice
3. Session 3 Spatial Justice: From the Right to the City to the Just City
4. Session 4 Socio-Ecological Transition and Inequalities
5. Session 5 Just Densification
6. Session 6 Housing, Climate and Justice
7. Session 7 Field visit
8. Session 8 Citizen Participation and Spatial Democracy
9. Session 9 Infrastructures, Care and Vulnerability
10. Session 10 Territories in Struggle: ZADs, Squats and Commons
11. Session 11 Global Cities, Urban Extractivism and Planetary Justice
12. Session 12 Decolonial Perspectives and Political Ecology of the Global South
13. Session 13 Envisioning Just Transitions
14. Session 14 Conclusion: Restitutions and Collective Synthesis