An Idea Whose Time Has Come:

The 'Just City' Concept
The “just city” concept infuses social justice concerns throughout planning and design process. It’s a style Toni Griffin has been honing over nearly two decades while practicing as an architect, designer, and urban planner, leading major civic projects such as the Washington Nationals Ballpark District in D.C. and the Detroit Future City master plan.

(Harvard University Graduate School of Design)

Griffin has formed a pedagogy from this as well, drawing on her field experience to become the founding director of the J. Max Bond Center on Design for the Just City at the Spitzer School of Architecture at the City College of New York in 2011.

Toni Griffin, one of the leading black women in architecture and design,
is leading her students at Harvard in envisioning and designing the "just city."
And it looks different in Boston than it does in Rotterdam.
Citation: In Search of the ‘Just City’ by Brentin Mock via CityLab

Imagine that the issues of race, income, education and unemployment inequality, and the resulting segregation, isolation and fear, could be addressed by designing for greater access, agency, ownership, beauty or empowerment.

Now imagine the Just City — the cities, neighborhoods and public spaces where all people, but especially the ‘least not' are included, have equitable and inclusive access to opportunities and tools that allow them to be productive, thrive and advance through the ranks of social and economic mobility. The Just City Lab investigates the concept:

Design and the Just City - Harvard Graduate School of Design

The Just City Lab investigates the concept of the Just City, and how design and planning contribute to the conditions of justice and injustice in cities, neighborhoods and the public realm. This exhibition presents our interrogation of whether design can have an impact on correcting urban injustice, inequality and disparity.