A Brief Introduction to Spatial Justice

Abstract: This article introduces spatial justice as a way of understanding social justice through a spatial lens, grounded in an ontology that treats space as both constitutive of and constituted by social relations. Building on Lefebvre’s account of the social production of space, elaborated by Massey and Soja, it argues that urban form, infrastructures and territorial governance actively shape the distribution of opportunities and vulnerabilities. The article presents a three-part framework—distributive, procedural and recognitional justice—showing how material allocation, decision-making processes and the recognition of identities and histories are interdependent. It situates planning within a triangle of governance that links public sector, private sector and civil society through formal and informal institutions, and interrogates power asymmetries using communicative planning (Healey, Forester) alongside agonistic perspectives that foreground productive conflict (Mouffe). The discussion connects spatial justice to the capabilities approach, emphasising how geography mediates substantive freedoms, and relates it to environmental justice by highlighting uneven exposures to risks and benefits. Finally, it contends that spatial justice, democracy and sustainability are co-constitutive, requiring institutions that enable parity of participation, equitable provision of public goods and ecologically responsible transformation. The article closes by motivating the benchmarking of spatial justice as a practical pathway for diagnosis, collective learning and action.