The Centre for the Just City was founded at the Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment at Delft University of Technology in response to the profound social, political, and environmental transformations reshaping cities across the world. Growing inequality, housing crises, climate change, democratic backsliding, and unequal access to public goods are not only producing spatial injustice; they are also giving rise to three interconnected crises that undermine our collective capacity to build fair and sustainable futures: a crisis of imagination, as societies struggle to envision alternative urban futures; a crisis of hope, as many people lose confidence that meaningful change is possible; and a crisis of recognition, as the knowledge, experiences, and aspirations of many communities continue to be ignored or marginalised.
The Centre exists to address these challenges through research, education, and public engagement. We advance planning and design as democratic practices that strengthen participation, expand access to public goods, and promote spatial justice. In education, we seek to cultivate critical consciousness by enabling students to understand how power, institutions, and spatial decisions shape everyday life, while equipping them to imagine and create more just urban futures. Through our research and engagement with governments, civil society, and professional practice, we develop concepts, methods, and practical tools that help planners, designers, policymakers, and communities discuss, evaluate, and implement spatial justice in concrete planning and design processes.