Overline: Colloquium

Headline: From parking place to public space: justice principles and acceptability of public space reallocation

The mobility transition requires a reallocation of public space. Instead of parking, public space is needed for cycling and walking (street as link), for non-commercial areas to meet, swap and repair (street as place) and for unsealed, planted areas to increase urban biodiversity (street as ecosystem). This reallocation can be based on various principles of justice (Creutzig et al., 2020). Though, how fairly do people who are shaped by a hegemonic car culture perceive such reallocation? And which principles of justice mostly influence their acceptability?

To answer these questions, we conducted a representative survey in Germany (N = 3,200) using a factorial survey experiment (Augsburg & Hinz, 2015). Respondents were asked to rate fairness and acceptability of various hypothetical situations (vignettes) describing reallocation of parking areas into protected bike lanes (street as link), parklets (street as place) and revegetation (street as ecosystem). Within these vignettes we varied the distributive justice framing (global justice vs. intergenerational justice vs. environmental justice), the loss of parking lots comparing to other neighborhoods (less vs. the same vs. more), the opportunity to participate in the planning process (information vs. self-selected participation vs. citizen assembly) and the local norm (support vs. rejection). Additionally, we examined how perceived risk of gentrification and environmental attitude influence the acceptability of urban space reallocation. The results show which justice dimensions are most crucial for an overall fairness evaluation and acceptability and provide important communication implications for practitioners.

The colloquium takes place as a Zoom conference. For details, please contact Anke Kläver.