Addressing Social and Spatial Justice Issues in American Universities: A Review of Architecture and Urban Planning Curricula

In this introductory chapter, the author explains the rationale for writing the book, mainly because of his frustration as a (formerly) practicing architect and urban planner with these disciplines’ collective failure in addressing issues of social and spatial justice pertaining design and planning; and his subsequent defection to the field of critical urban sociology. This intellectual and existential journey begins by probing a simple question: Can architectural practice and design of the built environment advance the cause of social and spatial justice? In a search for an answer, the chapter first provides a brief history of higher education institutions’ experiments with two significant initiatives in the American academic circles, namely, “multiculturalism” and “Justice, diversity, equity, and inclusion” (JDE&I), from the 1980s to the present. Next, using critical content analysis, the chapter evaluates the extent to which top-ranked programs in architecture and urban planning in American universities have incorporated JDE&I objectives in their respective graduate curricula during the past ten years. While urban planning programs fare better than those within the architecture discipline, the overall prognosis is not very promising for training and educating socially-conscious architects and planners. This conclusion is reached by identifying three determining factors: (1) Contribution of neoliberal policies to increasing social inequalities based on class, race/ethnicity, and gender; (2) the role played by rich donors and the board of trusteesBoard of trustees’ members on allocation of proceeds from endowed funds to certain educational programs on university campuses; and (3) a non-receptive corporate capitalist economic system which finds social justice initiatives that demand “equity” to be detrimental for maintaining acceptable profit margins in a market-based economy.