"The political geographer, Edward Soja, sums it all up in the term “spatial injustice.” Soja argues that justice has a spatial dimension that is not as well recognized as legal justice or economic justice. Spatial injustice is evident in the way the geography of the city is configured to favor its wealthy residents, often to the detriment of its poor communities.
While the city deteriorates as a result of mindless planning and neglect, its privileged residents retreat into their gated enclaves where streets are safe and clean, sidewalks exist, and churches are less noisy and crowded. These exclusive villages have been carved out of city space as if they belonged to another country. In lieu of a visa, you must surrender a driver’s license to enter them if you are not a homeowner."
...
"Look around us and see what kind of city has resulted from the collusion between our public officials and private developers. It is a place that is patently inhospitable to open spaces. Instead of green parks, we have grey parking spaces. Instead of wooded walks, we have golf courses. Our landscape is a collage of billboards. We are choking in the fumes of motor vehicles. Behind the long shadows cast by high-rise condos are the squatter shanties put up by construction workers and their families. The city they inhabit exists as shared space only in a fictional sense. Barriers everywhere, maintained by ubiquitous security guards, set the rich and the poor apart."
- Randy David, The Right to the City
children playing w/ their styropor boats, taken at the foot of the marcelo fernan bridge, cebu, june 2012
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