Introduction

This chapter discusses justice and fairness in the two cities of Delhi, India and Newcastle upon Tyne, England. At first view these two cities may seem very different. Newcastle is a provincial city of a little over 280,000 people in an industrialised country and, as the title of the book suggests, might be thought of as just an ‘ordinary city’. Conversely, Delhi is the capital city of what might still be considered as a ‘developing country’. It is also, importantly, a mega city with a population estimated to be between 18 and 25 million. Its aggressive striving to be a ‘world class city’, as detailed in its master plan (Delhi Development Authority, 2005), conditions much of its urban policy.

However, it is these very differences that make the comparison between the two cities so valuable for a focus on justice and fairness in an ‘ordinary city’ for several reasons. First, much of the literature on urban injustice, especially in relation to urban planning policy and practice, focuses on the ‘developing world’, where stark examples of injustice are to be seen (see for example Watson, 2003; Fernandes, 2004). Second, injustice perpetrated in the cause of ‘world city’ status is also well documented (see for example Roy and Ong, 2011; Speak, 2013). Third, as Robinson (2006) suggests, the ‘world city’ status itself presents a limited understanding of the complexity of cities. A hierarchy of cities, which places some at the top as ‘world cities’, focuses attention on a small fraction of cities and the economic activities, policies and institutions that exist mainly in those cities and which might influence distributive justice. It emphasises the similarities between these ‘world cities’, overlooking the diversity of existence within them. Moreover, it places them in a category apart from other cities and in doing so diverts attention from the similarities they may share with smaller ‘ordinary’ cities lower down the hierarchy.

Regardless of their place in any perceived hierarchy or typology, in cities around the world, there exists a struggle for territory between economy and society, nature and development, the affluent and the poor. This struggle involves an overlapping of physical structures, memories and narratives as different groups or activities seek to occupy and exist within the same spaces.