A Wider View of Social Justice

Your October feature on “Integrating Social Justice into Green Design” contains some good first steps for designers who may be unfamiliar with the issue but leaves the most important topics in this area undiscussed. Providing healthy interior spaces and shared community amenities are a good start, but “social justice” generally refers to redressing the major inequities in society today, especially socio-economic disparity and discrimination against minority groups. The ongoing failure of our country to provide dignified housing, school facilities, and other basics of community life to all its residents is a major social justice issue with clear implications for the planners of physical facilities. The injustices exposed around hurricane Katrina and the foreclosure crisis gripping the country are only two manifestations of the major failures in social justice we continue to experience.

To leave readers with the impression that social justice can be approached on the basis of design details without looking at the hard facts of inequality in our society does not give a realistic understanding of the issue. As green building evolves to address social justice, more of our practition-ers and more of our projects will have to address the un-sustainability of having our built environment and its planned development owned and controlled by a small, wealthy elite whose interests do not overlap with that of society as a whole.

Your October feature on “Integrating Social Justice into Green Design” contains some good first steps for designers who may be unfamiliar with the issue but leaves the most important topics in this area undiscussed. Providing healthy interior spaces and shared community amenities are a good start, but “social justice” generally refers to redressing the major inequities in society today, especially socio-economic disparity and discrimination against minority groups. The ongoing failure of our country to provide dignified housing, school facilities, and other basics of community life to all its residents is a major social justice issue with clear implications for the planners of physical facilities. The injustices exposed around hurricane Katrina and the foreclosure crisis gripping the country are only two manifestations of the major failures in social justice we continue to experience.

To leave readers with the impression that social justice can be approached on the basis of design details without looking at the hard facts of inequality in our society does not give a realistic understanding of the issue. As green building evolves to address social justice, more of our practition-ers and more of our projects will have to address the un-sustainability of having our built environment and its planned development owned and controlled by a small, wealthy elite whose interests do not overlap with that of society as a whole.

Fortunately, architects and planners have experience working to further social justice through building affordable housing, practicing community design, and advocating for greater economic equality and civil rights. That the article failed to mention the efforts of groups such as the Association for Community Design (or any of the 100+ community design centers that are its members), Design Corps, Public Architecture, Architects / Designers / Planners for Social Responsibility, or other like-minded groups does a real disservice to your readership. Members of these organizations constitute the largest base of expertise within the profession in dealing with social justice issues. I urge

EBN to continue to learn about, and educate readers about, the larger questions of social justice as they are part of green building, and of making the world a better place in general. I hope future efforts will include more voices, including those who have taken the issue to heart for the longest time.

Raphael Sperry, AIA

National Board Member

Architects / Designers / Planners for Social ResponsibilityEditors’ Response:

You’re right that a proper discussion of social justice and the built environment includes much larger inequities than any single building can fix. Some buildings, like schools and affordable housing projects, lend themselves to discussions of social justice (see

EBN Nov. 2002 and Mar. 2005 for more on these topics). But designers have an opportunity to make a difference with every building they touch, not just the ones with social goals. Our goal with this article was to expand the discussion of social justice to all building types and give designers some practical guidance on where to start. It’s not the end of the discussion—it’s the beginning. We invite anyone who is interested to visit www.buildinggreen.com/socialjustice or contact us at ebn@buildinggreen.com so we can foster communication around this very important issue.