IN-PERSON Barcelona Livable Cities. Section A

Abstract

The world’s population continues to increase at an alarming rate, which necessitates solutions to the challenges of preserving natural resources, preventing environmental degradation and pollution, and securing habitable land. This is especially true for city centers that continue to attract people in the hopes of increased access to jobs, education, healthcare, and upward mobility. As people flock to cities, the impacts of increased urbanization may lead to a strain or breakdown of local ecosystems and infrastructure failure. Conversations about how to address our impending urban future are moot if they are done in siloed disciplinary fields. The urgency of these challenges calls for a collaborative, interdisciplinary approach. While the role of architects, urban planners, and engineers have been heard in casting a vision of an urban future that centers on livability and sustainability, widening the conversational field to include scholars in environmental justice and the sociology of religion provides a moral framework for the cities of the future. This moral framework, rooted in religious environmentalism, is crucial for guiding the ethical dimensions of urban planning and city development. In this paper, I will explicate how applying an environmental justice framework and religious activism informs community participation. When residents are empowered to make decisions concerning the communities they live, work, and play in, they embody the right to the city concept. In this way, they are not passive residents upon whom the expanding city acts, but they are the “architects” of the urbanism they want.