City of Equals

When we think about equality in the city, we are very likely to think first of the wide and growing divide between rich and poor, in material terms. Yet when we think more about a ’city of equals’ it becomes apparent that how people feel treated by the city and those around them, and whether they can live according to their values, are much more central. Accordingly, combining their own reflections, a multi-disciplinary literature review, and, distinctively, more than 180 interviews in 10 cities in 6 countries, Wolff and de Shalit have derived an account of a city of equals based on the idea that it should give each of its city-zens a secure sense of place or belonging.

Four underlying values structure this account. First, access to the goods and services of the city should not be based purely on the market. Second, each person should be able to live a life they find meaningful. Third, there should be diversity and wide social mixing. Fourth, there should be ’non-deferential inclusion’: each person should be able to get access to what they are entitled to without being treated as less worthy than others. They should be able to enjoy their rights without bowing and scraping, waiting longer than others, or going through special bureaucratic hurdles. In sum, in a city of equals each person is proud of their city and has the (justified) feeling that their city is proud of (people like) them.

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Jonathan Wolff, The Alfred Landecker Professor of Values and Public Policy, Blavatnik School of Government University of Oxford, Avner de Shalit, The Max Kampelman Professor of Democracy and Human Rights, Department of Political Science The Hebrew University of Jerusalem

Jonathan Wolff is the Alfred Landecker Professor of Values and Public Policy at the Blavatnik School of Government Oxford and Governing Body Fellow at Wolfson College. He was formerly Professor of Philosophy and Dean of Arts and Humanities at UCL. He works on inequality, disadvantage, social justice, poverty, and challenges to democracy, as well as applied topics such as public safety, disability, gambling, and recreational drugs. He has worked with organisations such as the Nuffield Council on Bioethics, the WHO, and the Academy of Medical Science. For many years he wrote a regular column on higher education for The Guardian.

Avner de Shalit (D.Phil. Oxford 1990) is the Max Kampelman Professor of Democracy and Human Rights at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel. He is the author of 9 books and dozens of papers in urban political theory, equality, and environmental philosophy. At the Hebrew University he was head of the Department of Political Science and Dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences. For his research achievements he was awarded the Rothschild Prize in the Social Sciences (2014), and the EMET Prize in Political Science (2018). In Israel he has been active for peace with the Palestinians and for democracy.