Inequality in Cities and an Argument for Democracy

This paper focuses on specific patterns of inequalities within modern cities and aims to address them by application of a critical theory of democracy and enhancement of political agency. This paper starts with an argument why modern cities are an important site of collective decision-making. Cities are currently accommodating more than half of the global population (UN 2015). Furthermore, urban style of living is extending to non-urban areas are the rural-urban division gradually disappears (Brenner & Schmid 2012). So far, cities, with a few exceptions, have been not in the centre of attention for democratic scholars. This is unfortunate since for inhabitants of the cities questions of political emancipation are especially important. On the one hand, cities are spheres of emancipation but on the other, they are also spheres of oppression. In this paper, I define oppression as a state of affairs in which relevant members do not have, or are limited in, agency regarding the rules of collective life. I argue that urban dwellers experience various sources of oppression, namely poverty, socio-economic segregation and rising informality. While the sources of oppression are not exclusive to cities, the patterns in which they appear are. Due to those patterns, namely their cumulative and reinforcing itself character, cities should be of specific concerns to the critical democratic theorist. Inequality in cities results in a radically unequal society in which certain groups are excluded from equal membership in the city-life (Barber 2013, Sassen 1999, Yiftachel 2009). In order to address inequality as a source of urban oppression, I offer a critical theory of democracy focused on the political agency as guidance for necessary urban reforms. Broadly speaking, critical theory ‘provides the descriptive and normative bases for social inquiry aimed at decreasing domination and increasing freedom in all their forms’ (Bohman 2005). A critical theory of democracy focuses therefore on political arrangements which can enhance political emancipation of members of a relevant polity. This can be done via various means, but in this paper, I focus on enhancement of political agency as a tool of political emancipation. I further apply conception of agency as introduced by Amartya Sen (1985, 1992, 1999, 2001). Agency for Sen has several requirements, namely reasoned judgement, choice or counterfactual choice, and an achievement. In this paper, I show how specific reforms enhancing conditions for political agency can address the inequality in modern cities and eliminate it as a source of political oppression of urban inhabitants. More precisely, I argue for increased communication modes between decision-making and those in whose interest decisions are being made, the inclusion of illegal and invisible inhabitants in the decision-making mechanism of the city, enhancing education and providing spaces for reflection as a way of addressing inequality within modern cities. Many of these reforms are already part of the wider developmental or renovation programmes in urban space. However, originality of my proposal lays in an explicit focus on inhabitants’ political agency as a solution to political oppression within the cities.