Towards a Power-Balanced Participatory Design Process

Participatory designers have taken inspiration from other practices like the social sciences to develop socially just and horizontal processes to collaborate with communities. In the current work, we take the premise that designers do not have enough means to address concepts of power and politics in design practice. Therefore, we elaborate upon...

Beyond global gains and local pains: Spatial inequality of hinterland logistics

Trade infrastructure and logistical activities have long been a source of prosperity as well as nuisance. The gains and pains of logistics, however, are not distributed equally across regions and cities. Important trade hubs such as Rotterdam or Chicago have built strong trade institutions and accumulated urban wealth, hereby making a successful...

Unlocking the potential of sustainability transitions to make cities more just and liveable

Cities are the main culprits in terms of carbon emissions. It is in cities that the effects of climate change, from heat stress, to damage and casualties brought by extreme weather, to coastal flooding, are the most acutely felt. But cities are also where technological, environmental, economic, social, and political innovations needed to...

Equity and the Ethics of Water Governance

Water is recognized to pose some very urgent questions in the near future. A significant number of people are deprived of clean drinking water and sanitation services, with an accordingly high percentage of people dying from water borne diseases. At the same time, an increasing percentage of the global population lives in areas that are at risk...