Masters of Interventon # 4
Just City with James C. Scott
To what extent do rules and standards lead to a just society? Planned utopias proved not to lead automatically to a free and equal way of living, or all-inclusive solidarity for that matter. State governance seems fated to produce a certain form of social marginalization.
Could engineering a just city entail the conscious incorporation of the lawless, the untamed and the subversives within our city borders? Do these groups, which are evading or excluded by the system, represent a way of living that we could learn from? How can their rules inspire us in engineering a more righteous place, a just city?
Yale University Professor James C. Scott is author of the most eloquent critique of the tradition of high modernist planning Seeing like a State (1998). His latest research focuses on the contrast between the lowland city-state and its labor control vs. the non-state-hill periphery in South East Asia. Based on this expertise he will comment on how the city should be studied as a living, breathing and dynamic process.
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