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Spatial Justice As Analytic Framework by Justin M. Williams a Dissertation Spatial Justice as Analytic Framework by Justin M. Williams A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy (Political Science) in the University of Michigan 2018 Doctoral Committee: Professor Lisa J. Disch, Chair Associate Professor Scott D. Campbell Associate Professor Mika LaVaque-Manty Associate Professor Robert Mickey Justin M. Williams [email protected] ORCID iD: 0000-0001-9861-3056 © Justin M. Williams 2018 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I owe much to many for their support during this project. First, my nonhuman allies: Oh The Cat made me smile on the worst days; my workshop gave me a space to process ideas and produce something concrete. My thanks go to the gracious funding that made this dissertation possible. The Dow Sustainability Fellows provided not only financial support, but a rich, interdisciplinary cohort of junior scholars with whom to share my ideas. Likewise, the Mellon Dissertation Writing seminar led by Bill Paulson supported my research not only financially, but also by allowing me to explore concepts central to this dissertation. Rackham Graduate School also provided funding at critical moments along the way. Several reading groups and workshops were central to the development this dissertation. Most prominent among them is the political theory workshop at the University of Michigan, at which I consistently experienced a yet unmatched degree of inisight, collegiality, and intellectual fun. The University of Michigan Detroit Center provided a home while I lived in Detroit. Mikell Hyman and Dana Kornberg were both especially valuable friends and intellectual partners while I was there. The Environmental Political Theory group at the Western Political Science Association – including the outstanding pre-conference workshop – gave me a supportive and insightful audience for outside the University. Thanks especially to Teena Gabrielson, Andrew Biro, Andrew Valls, and John Meyer. ii It is difficult to imagine how I would have completed the dissertation without some especially close friends. Ben Peterson was my intellectual partner and dear friend throughout the PhD program. His kindness (which alone accounts for his acceptance of me on his trivia team – my performance simply couldn’t justify my presence there) always inspires me. Sam McDermott is a truer friend than I ever expected to have. His loyalty and generosity make me feel home. Jon and Rebecca Atwell, too, were a constant source of support. This list of supporting friends could get quite long, so I will stop here and apologize to those I omitted. I cannot express enough gratitude to Lisa Disch, my adviser (I cannot prove it, but I am sure that Lisa is the best adviser in the world). Her generosity of time, focused and razor-sharp feedback, attention, and care shaped this project from its inception. Simply put, this project would not exist – at least not as it now appears – without Lisa’s generous, insightful direction. The rest of my sensational committee, too – Rob Mickey, Mika LaVaque-Manty, and Scott Campbell – all provided feedback, insight, and encouragement along the way. Finally, Bonnie Washick provided every imaginable form of support as I finished the dissertation. She was a gracious editor (even when I was an impatient writer), colleague, financial support, cook, kind ear, friend, and ally. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ii LIST OF FIGURES v ABSTRACT vi CHAPTER I. Introduction 1 II. Spatial Production 17 III. How to Produce Justice 50 IV. Detroit Future City 90 V. Conclusion 148 BIBLIOGRAPHY 161 iv LIST OF FIGURES FIGURE Figure 1 Strategic Renewal Approach 141 Figure 2 Framework Zones 142 Figure 3 Detroit Residential Parcel Survey Definitions 143 Figure 4 Strategic Framework Zones 144 Figure 5 Development Matrix 145 Figure 6 Innovation Ecological Land Use 146 Figure 7 Before and After 147 v ABSTRACT Political theorists have recently become interested in the role of nonhumans in politics, as evinced in the recent literature on “new materialism”. This literature raises questions such as: how do nonhumans participate in politics as more than mere objects, and what implications might this suggest for normative concepts like justice? I explore this question by theorizing and analyzing the concept of spatial justice. The central claim of spatial justice is that the organization of space – a set of material and ideological relations that act on, yet are formed by, social relations – influences the fair ordering of human relations. As such, it provides one window onto the question of nonhumans and politics. I argue that spatial justice is best understood as an analytic lens that illuminates the ways in which “space” - a term denoting the location of things relative to each other – participates in the formation of justice claims. Spatial justice is a concept already deployed in geography and urban planning, yet it is most frequently understood as a normative evaluation: that any particular space is just or unjust. I argue that such an understanding of spatial justice simply adds a not-particularly helpful adjective to some well-worn justice claims – in other words, calling an injustice spatial merely states that it happens “in space.” I argue that when spatial justice is better instead understood as an analytic framework, it illuminates the representative effects of the urban planning process: spatial representations frame justice debates by making certain constituencies – both human and nonhuman – present in the political process. To make this argument, I engage authors in critical geography, political theory, and science and technology studies. vi I argue that critical environmental scholars and political theorists have much to gain by incorporating spatial justice into their analyses. I examine the controversy around the policy document Detroit Future City (DFC), which literally maps a future for Detroit in which the city’s widespread vacancy is transformed into sustainable uses. Against both critics and boosters of the plan, I argue that DFC’s most important effect is to represent the city in its numerous maps, surveys, and data tables, all of which have already become the subject of debate in the city. DFC visualizes a Detroit where low density neighborhoods are part of a more just city, a marked departure from dominant approaches to urban planning that posit population increase as the solution to Detroit’s planning problems. I argue that although DFC is unlikely to directly guide Detroit’s master plan, development, and investment strategy, it has already influenced policy and activist debates with data and maps that inscribe vacancy into the city. I analyze DFC and its surrounding controversy to argue that only by understanding spatial justice as an analytic lens can DFC be appreciated in this productive light. My theory of spatial justice informs new materialism by emphasizing the capacity for nonhumans to participate in politics. I differentiate this participatory approach from a tendency among new materialists to emphasize the innate capacities of nonhumans to transform human behavior. Against this latter analysis, in which nonhumans are said to disrupt humans’ ethical and political commitments, I argue that nonhumans like spatial relations transform the political alliances that represent them. Thus spatial justice provides a language for analyzing nonhumans' emergent political power. vii CHAPTER I Introduction In a 2017 Opinion piece for the New York Times, law professor Bernadette Atuahene observed a new form of what is by now a tragically familiar pattern for housing in Detroit: “African-Americans still face housing discrimination in the city and beyond. Another 50 years is too long to wait for Justice.” Atuahene argued that the city has for years levied unconstitutionally high property tax rates, which, in a city with a staggering proportion of residents living below the poverty line, led to widespread tax foreclosures in the city. In this context, rosy claims about Detroit’s economic comeback, as made by Detroit’s Mayor Mike Duggan and others, gloss over the geographically uneven character of redevelopment: “What this comeback story omits is that although Detroit is 143 square miles, only 7.2 square miles are part of the revival. The real story is a tale of two cities. In downtown and surrounding areas, developers receive tax breaks, incentives and subsidies to renovate the portion of the city inhabited by newcomers. Meanwhile, the neighborhoods peopled by the residents who have been holding the city together through its economic turmoil are subject to monumental tax inJustice.” (Atuahene 2017) While downtown and midtown see massive investment in sports arenas and transit infrastructure, “the neighborhoods” suffer an ongoing foreclosure crisis that forces many longtime Detroiters out of their homes. Similar critiques of concentrated development and its beneficiaries have occurred before in Detroit, and could easily be made about most other maJor urban centers in the country – the 1 fiery critique of gentrification in the San Francisco Bay Area, for example, elicits similar sentiments about geographically uneven development and its subsequent effects on residential patterns in that area. Beyond intra-city development, one might also encounter these sorts of claims along a rural-urban divide, as Kathy Cramer demonstrates in her study of rural Wisconsin politics (Cramer Walsh 2012). For the small-town residents of Cramer’s study, “Madison” and “Milwaukee” are understood as the undeserving
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