Critical review. Jacques Lévy’s working papers on spatial justice

Abstract

This text critically reviews Jacques Lévy recent work on two inseparable question: What is a just territory? What can we do to approach more just territories? Exploring two main sources (“L'espace demande justice” (2011) and “Société” (2012)), it identifies three approaches to spatial justice. The uniform distribution of a-spatial goods in the territory; differentiated egalitarian co-production of spatial public goods and self-organisation of a place’s development project. This is followed by Jacques Lévy’s illustration of empiric recommendations, for the topic social policy of housing in an urbanistic perspective. The imbrications of spatial justice within a movement from a charitable stance to the enabling of individuals-actors is also reviewed. A discussion section interrogates the legitimation of urban public goods and constructs a historic, an efficiency and an ethical argument. I conclude by opening the chantier of a critical stance, through the enunciation of three critiques.

Full text

1
Critical review
Jacques Lévy’s working papers on spatial justice
“The idea of associating justice and space assumes that space “offers matter to define what is just” and that
realisable actions on space can improve justice.”
(Lévy, 2011, p. 40).
Abstract
This text critically reviews Jacques Lévy recent work on two inseparable question: What is a just territory? What can we
do to approach more just territories? Exploring two main sources (“L'espace demande justice” (2011) and “Société”
(2012)), it identifies three approaches to spatial justice. The uniform distribution of a-spatial goods in the territory;
differentiated egalitarian co-production of spatial public goods and self-organisation of a place’s development project.
This is followed by Jacques Lévy’s illustration of empiric recommendations, for the topic social policy of housing in an
urbanistic perspective. The imbrications of spatial justice within a movement from a charitable stance to the enabling of
individuals-actors is also reviewed. A discussion section interrogates the legitimation of urban public goods and constructs
a historic, an efficiency and an ethical argument. I conclude by opening the chantier of a critical stance, through the
enunciation of three critiques.
Uniform distribution of a-spatial goods
In the chapter “Société”, Lévy presents three approaches to the definition of spatial justice (2012). I will look into each of
these definitions in turn.
Spatial justice can be seen as dispenser of public goods defined in a non-spatial manner, associated to individual rights.
Lévy adverts that the solution of “equal conditions of access to these services regardless of location” (Lévy, 2012, p. 153)
is simple only in principle. The guidance of uniform distribution of goods across the territory is complicatd by mobility.
But it is the tension between the goal of equal treatment of all and the unequal costs that it entails for different parts of
the territory which remains a problem (Lévy, Société, 2012, p. 152). Nevertheless, that is seen to be the translation into
space, by French society, of the Republican project of universality. Eventually stating that this conception renders any
geographical policy necessarily unjust, Lévy considers, in a first moment, that certain public services such as energy,
transport, and telecommunication might benefit all residents beyond the areas where they are invested (Lévy, 2012, p.
153). The justness of this effort of ubiquity, we will conclude, depends on whether society’s development project is
hindered – in the quality of the good and the cost of its production – by its conception in a non-spatial manner.
This approach fragments the production-consumption of the good and disregards the qualities of the city: mobility,
efficiency of the city as a productive system, and scale effects (economy and quality advantages of services of a certain
size – universities and hospitals (Lévy, 2012, p. 153)) (Lévy, 2011, pp. 55-59). That fragmentation opposes the
resourcefulness that a conception of such goods in a spatial manner brings to a political project of justice (Lévy, 2011, p.
49). Furthermore, Lévy claims, this “unequal uniformism” (Lévy, 2011, p. 68) disrespects the differentiated burdening of
the populations living in and outside big cities. This argument is supported by the analysis of the fiscal system in France.
Lévy points out the higher cost of living in the city, the higher contribution of city dwellers to national income and the
fact that big cities concentrate deprived inhabitants. He concludes, in a provocative manner, that “it is the poor of the
rich cities who finance the rich of the poor territories, which seems inconsistent with the idea that we can have of justice”
(Lévy, 2011, pp. 55-58).

2
Three approaches to spatial justice
Differentiated egalitarian co-production of spatial public goods
The enunciation of spatial justice as “the condition of possibility of equal liberty for each to construct the spatial practices
of their choice” (Lévy, 2012, p. 154) presupposes three ideas developed elsewhere in Lévy’s work: 1) the compatibility of
individual strategies and society’s goals; 2) the concept of a society of actors where the power of arbitration of each
individual has considerably increased for a large part of the population; and 3) urbanity defined as the indivisible
composition of density and diversity (Lévy, 1994; Lévy, 1999)
1
. Against this background, the ethical principle of
compatibility between individual and society takes the form the consonance of spatiality
2
and space as a societal
arrangement (Lévy, 2012, p. 154). This translation mobilises the concept of public goods, borrowed from welfare
economics. Samuelson’s definition has two characteristics (1954): being non-excludable, that is, accessible to everyone,
and non-rivalrous, meaning that the use of a public good by some does not preclude its use by others. Lévy adds a third
characteristic: a public good’s utility increases with the increase of the number of its users. Lévy’s use of this concept
respects the three corollaries while emphasizing the systemic production of these goods between society and individual.
Knowledge, health, and politics are, in this sense, public goods (Lévy, 2012, p. 125; Lévy, 2011, p. 53).The qualitative
spatial – applicable to goods such as urbanity, public space and mobility – is pertinent whenever the good is not conceived
of in a sectorial fashion, but, conversely, derives taking into consideration the specific qualities of the city: social bonds
woven in public space, mingle of diverse populations and functions, systemic and yet serendipitous productivity (Lévy,
2011, p. 49). Henri Lefebvre’s “right to the city” (1968), central to the literature of spatial justice, is advanced as an
example of what it means to “organize the territory in such a way that some of its components are effectively accessible
to all” (Lévy, 2012, p. 154). As far as Lévy is concerned, the right to the city does not concern the access to a collection of
dissociated objects
3
located in the city, but, conversely, the (conditional) right to high levels of urbanity (Lévy, 2011, p.
49)
4
.
Increasing the levels of urbanity – which corresponds to seeking the maximization of variety, coherence and stability of
social realities concentrated in a minimum area (Lévy, 2012, p. 156) has three major implications. Firstly, public policy
should favour increasing urbanity in the city centre and suburbia where its accessibility is easier to implement (city,
suburb), allowing cities to be fully so, that is, advantageous arrangements in relation to a space without concentration
(Lévy, 2011, p. 50). Secondly, it should discourage urbanity models of dispersion. The peri-, hyper and infra urban are
regarded as spatial arrangements that contradict two conditions of spatial justice, consistent with the purposefulness of
cities: 1) concurrent furtherance of individual and society’s spatial capital, and 2) concurrent production of private and
public goods (Lévy, 2011, p. 49). The access to the city with origin beyond the suburbs, associated to the use of private
car, is seen to impose privatisation of space and, consequently, disinterest in public space. Furthermore, it imposes
separation of functions, de-densification and loss of diversity
5
and deprives these non-permanent dwellers of the
cognitive advantages of least programmed city-use (Lévy, 2011, p. 50) (Lévy, 2012, p. 161). Thus, justice involves a
conditional equal access to spatial public goods, one that safeguards their quality and their public character (Lévy, 2011,
p. 50). A third implication introduces the idea that a society’s development project privileging cities should favour big
cities, for size – other things equal – affects the strength of urbanity (Lévy, 2011, p. 49).
1
This is a synthetic expression of qualities of city as a solution to the problem of distance: density, compactness, inter-accessibility of
urban places, presence of public spaces, importance of pedestrian metrics, co-presence habitat-work, diversity of activities, sociologic
mixity, strong intra-urban polarity, market productivity by inhabitant, positive self-evaluation of the ensemble of urban places, self-
visibility and self-identification of the urban society, political society of urban scale (Lévy, 1999, p. 243).
2
By spatialités, Levy understands the set of “spatial actions conceived of and implemented by the multiple actors that compose society”
(Lévy, 2011, p. 46)
3
He illustrates this objects as neighbourhoods, networks generated by a mode of transport, type of activity (Lévy, 2011, p. 49).
4
“The right to the city presupposes correctly identifying what makes a city a city, urbanity." (Lévy, 2011, p. 49).
5
Inattention to environmental costs is yet another argument (Lévy, 2012, p. 161).

3
The three implications we observe for urbanity also apply to decisions concerning mobility, if we define it as a spatial
public good. When mobility is empirically bound to positions in the city (public metrics in centre and motorised metrics
in the peri-urban
6
(Lévy, 2011, p. 50)), favouring the centre and suburbia and discouraging periphery correspond to
improvements in public transport and disincentives to the use of the private car (Lévy, 2011, p. 54). The third implication
– favouring mobility in big cities (Lévy, 2011, p. 53) – also activates shared responsibility of one’s (conditional) access to
this good: “[i]f you decide to install yourself in a remote and sparsely populated area, you cannot ask to have the same
connection to networks of mobility that [you would have] if you live[d] in a metropolis” (Lévy, 2011, p. 53). As we will
discuss later, issues of mobility expose spatial justice as a public debate over desirability, for oneself and for others, of
certain types of space, involving choices over the level of exposure to otherness (Lévy, 2011, pp. 51,55). Mobility is then
“an issue of civilization; it is not the same type of society, where mobility privatizes and where it produces public goods.”
(Lévy, 2011, p. 51).
Self-organisation of a place’s development project
The third enunciation regards a place’s legitimate capacity of self-organisation of a development project (Lévy, 2012, p.
155). Development is defined as a desired improvement of a situation in relation to the preceding one, in the perspective
of the relevant actors (Lévy, 2012, p. 149). The mutualisation of part of society’s accumulated resources, and its
“rearranging, exceeding and invention” qualities mark it off from growth (Lévy, 2012, pp. 149,151).
Injustice appears as maladjustment of the “scale of the architecture of power” to that of the civic space of a urbanized
society. A spatial injustice regards the repartition of financial resources among geographical levels of society. The
specificity of this type of injustice would be its invisibility and absence from the public debate. Considering the case of
the fiscal power in France, Lévy points out that current national tax collection (to be redistributed more through
individuals than through territories) invalidates a true equalising policy between political authorities (Lévy, 2011, pp. 55-
58). When infra-national spaces are subtracted from autonomy and, consequently, responsibility for their own
development, we observe a spatial translation of the problem of unconditional and lengthy assistance to the poor,
unfavourable to commitment, responsibility and increase in productivity (Lévy, 2012, pp. 135,136). In the absence of
adequate scale for a political project of justice, the particular problems of a region or city are obliterated by broad logic
(Lévy, 2011, p. 58). In what Lévy designates a dictatorship of the time of political institution over the time of present
society, the unchanged “constitutional arrangement founder of the Third Republic” would be responsible for inadequate
administrative boundaries of cities and lack of trustworthy skills (Lévy, 2012, p. 155). Inversely, federated autonomy at
regional level would open the possibility for big cities to organise, among other goals, internal projects of solidarity
tackling the problem of the urban poor (Lévy, 2011, p. 57)
7
.
Social policy of housing in an urbanistic perspective
In France, since the 60’s, the massive construction of the « cités HLM » has pursued the objective of rendering accessible
to the greater possible number the private and detached good of adequate shelter, a project that has turned against itself
(Lévy, 2012, p. 157). This example can help to understand the empiric-theory imbricate which constructs the argument
towards a reformulation of spatial justice capable of addressing the problems that a distributive a-spatial response
aggravated. That is to say, the transition from a policy of social housing to a social policy of housing, in an urbanistic
perspective. Lévy’s analysis of ghetto formation draws the attention to the “actorisation” of the inhabitants who chose
and were able to leave the cités
8
. The incapacity of the public sector to respond to the evolving demands of the inhabitants
is causal of the progressive evening of sociological profiles and housing fabric dilapidation. Advancing the second
6
“In fact, mobility is a constitutive of various positions in the city; in the centres of major cities, public metrics (walking + public
transport) dominate and the motorisation rate has dropped significantly for twenty years (it is much A50% lower) in central Paris.
Conversely, in the suburban lifestyle, travels other than by car count very little, car ownership per household is approaching 100% with
over 60% of households “multi-car-owners”.” (Lévy, 2011, p. 50).
7
This idea is clearer within Levy’s idea of federation of subsidiary scales of governance, from the metropolis to the world (Lévy, 1994).
8
Lévy does not mention the mortgage access to the private market but it is an important aspect of this “actorisation” in many
explications of “flights” of the low middle class from popular neighbourhoods to the suburbs and peri-urban (Soja, 2010).

4
enunciation of spatial justice reviewed above, the sectorial answer by the public sphere should give way to the
identification of a desirable “horizon that connects housing and the city”. Lévy will regard this horizon as a combination
of securing access to housing and sociological mixity (Lévy, 2011, p. 42). Access to housing pertains to the basic rights
necessary for the contractual entrance of all individuals in a development project (that Lévy resolves with the idea of
“universal income”) (Lévy, 2012, p. 137). The idea of sociological mixity
9
is not introduced, but we can perhaps read it as
the social translation of diversity, a component of urbanity, legitimised through the consideration of the latter as a public
good.
Avoiding concentration of rich and poor in separate neighbourhoods (Lévy, 2011, p. 42; Lévy, Société, 2012, p. 157)
implies abundant support for poor residents in predominantly rich neighbourhoods, accompanied by the establishment
of strict rules of access and exit of that assistance system. Interestingly, this idea of pure solidarity is spatial when it does
not pin down the recipients of aid to reserved places, a separate market and a divided public (Lévy, 2011, pp. 42,43). On
the side of the rich, this implies encouraging those with more spatial capital to choose to inhabit popular neighbourhoods
(counting on the social group of the “bobos”) (Lévy, 2011, pp. 42,43). This takes “housing as an inseparable component
of the public good "urbanity"” (Lévy, 2012, p. 157) and prioritises, from the full spectrum of city components, those whose
improvement can further increase of the level of urbanity: accessibility of public transports, better security, better quality
of cultural and commercial facilities, green spaces, better schools (Lévy, 2011, p. 43).
This orientation, envisaging ultimate access to a unified housing market, supposes the control of neighbourhood
population settlement dynamics by urban governments. It includes highly differentiated fiscal manipulation of the rent
market and reduction and suppression of aid to the fixation of the poor when this diverges from the goal of mixity (Lévy,
2011, pp. 42-43, 45-46). The right to decent housing of the first formulation meets the universality of access to the
“position to exercise their freedom in this area [of housing] by conducting arbitrations”. Lévy continues: “it also means
that housing enters the world of capabilities, that is to say, that it contributes, through the development of individuals
who access it, to the development of society as a whole (Lévy, 2012, p. 157)”. That is the significance of rendering urban
space attractive for whichever resident, independent of its revenue, rejecting the idea of prioritisation of the poor.
Understanding individual capabilities in relation to space also identifies the double error of policies
10
of fiscal incentive to
the creation of “unqualified” work in areas of unemployment. At once, it destines those residing locally to low paid jobs,
job seeking marked by immobility and further confinement to the social universe of the ghetto (Lévy, 2011, p. 46).
The principles displayed in the previous example can be extrapolated to other goods, whenever conceived spatially.
Education becomes a spatial public good when improvement actions mind location in relation to the objectives of higher
levels of urbanity and sociological mixity. These actions surpass physical infrastructure and can reach all elements
impacting individuals’ arbitrations on the couple school-housing, for instance, pedagogical team and advantages in future
educational access to those frequenting a certain school (Lévy, 2011, p. 48).
Imbrications of spatial justice and justice theories
The second approach to spatial justice revises the treatment of space in an isotropic manner – “doing as if the city did
not exist” – drawing instead on the constitutive qualities of contrast and productive differentiation of urbanisation (Lévy,
2011, pp. 55-59)
11
. Spatial justice can then be defined by elimination. It concerns the problems of justice that an approach
disregarding the spatial dimension of society has not settled, aggravating injustices or even creating new problems. This
9
He does present the idea of mixity in the context of public space: “Diversity is not a policy of redistribution of “isolable” private goods,
it is a contribution to equality of access and to capacities. Public space does not distribute money to the poor, he gives to the poor as
to the rich the opportunity to experience productivity and creativity by exposure to otherness. That's it, is not nothing. (Lévy, 2012, p.
160)”. /“La mixité n’est pas une politique de redistribution de biens privés isolables, c’est une contribution à l’égalité des accès et des
capacités. L’espace public ne distribue pas d’argent aux pauvres, il donne aux pauvres comme aux riches la possibilité d’une expérience
de la productivité et de la créativité par l’exposition à l’altérité. C’est tout ; ce n’est pas rien.” (Lévy, 2012, p. 160)
10
Reference to the policy of “zones franches urbaines” in France, launched in 1996 (Lévy, 2011, p. 46).
11
In a subsequent analysis of the political and administrative division of the French territory, Levy will explore the democratic
implication of this uniform treatment of the territory: the unequal weight of citizens (Lévy, 2011, p. 59).

5
residual formulation addresses the unequal distributions of a truly geographic nature that persist in a purely Ralwsian fair
distribution of basic goods (Lévy, 2011, p. 41).
This transition is, in fact, part of a broader movement in justice theory between two epochs of justice. The first epoch, “a
discourse of consolation targeted to communities”, yields to the second (though not completely), “marked effective
actions directed towards individuals-actors”, in the last decades of the XIXth century, in developed countries (Lévy &
Lussault, 2003, p. 352). This movement can also be presented as a progression from the first to the second term of four
main tensions of justice: 1) from natural to social causality of inequalities, triggering social actions capable of cancelling
them out; 2) from equality to fairness , associating the right to equality to some responsibility of the least-well-off towards
justice; 3) from pessimism (conservators and eschatological interventionists) to optimism (liberals and progressive
interventionists) conceiving the possibility of incremental progress through effective action taken from the present state
of affairs without its complete reversal; and 4) from compensation to recovery, rejecting society’s reparation of groups
from incommensurable historic damage beyond its effects in the present.
The second formulation of justice is based on two aspects of freedom: its compatibility with equality and its demand of
responsibility
12
. Configured, in the society of actors, as the possibility to make choices according to one’s biographic
project without compromising its feasibility, freedom becomes a basic good whose equality of access must be guaranteed
(Lévy, Société, 2012, pp. 138-139,145-147). The centrality of equality is then conceived of as compatible with freedom
and their joint improvement depends on the mutualisation of some of society’s resources. However, this bears one
condition: “that the asymmetry that would make victims of the poor, and compensate their fragility by moral superiority
is banned.” This alters the relationship of a recipient and a supporter demanding responsibility from all. (Lévy, Société,
2012, pp. 138-139).
We have also seen that this second formulation is the spatial translation of the ethical principle of compatibility between
individual spatial choices and society’s space, whereby individual access to spatial public goods depends on the user’s
capacity to preserve the quality and publicity of the good, mobilising Sen’s concept of capability. Capability, translated in
French as “capacité” is the ability to do things, a possibility which is either actualised or virtual (Lévy, Société, 2012, p.
167)). Lévy decomposes this concept into two facets: competence, where the (cognitive) ability is considered at the level
of individual; and capacity, where the (generally conceived) ability is relevant for both the individual and society (Lévy,
2012, p. 141).
Discussion
“The challenge is to achieve a commensuration of goods of profoundly different natures and consider
contradictory risks: excluding territories, on one side, excessive tax collection and culture of assistance, on
the other. This dependence of choice of multiple complexities imposes a procedural approach: equivalences
between values can only be built through public debate.”
(Lévy, Société, 2012, p. 152)
13
.
This argumentation in relation to Lévy’s construction of enunciations of spatial justice (Lévy, 2011; 2012) could have been
constructed upon a contradiction. On the one hand, Lévy defines justice as a procedural project where public builds
consensus. On the other hand, the author advances resolute recommendations of spatial policy that could further justice.
One could argue, however, that both approaches are complementary, for the latter can play a role in feeding the former
14
.
12
Here we can read Sen’s idea of freedom, namely the “significant aspect of freedom: it makes us accountable for what we do”,
introducing deontological demands as duty. (Sen, 2010, p. 19).
13
“L’enjeu est de parvenir à une commensuration de biens de natures profondément différentes et de prendre en considération des
risques contradictoires : exclusion de territoires, d’un côté, prélèvement excessif et culture d’assistance, de l’autre. Cette dépendance
des choix à de multiples complexités du contexte impose une approche procédurale : les équivalences entre valeurs ne peuvent être
construites que par le débat public.” (Lévy, Société, 2012, p. 152).
14
In no moment do we find a safeguard on the provocative nature of these recommendations and on their subjection to public scrutiny.

6
We can assume that these policy recommendations should be able to stand on their own, as statements of spatial justice.
I will, then, focus on the reasoning that constructs them.
“(…)[T]he ethical dimension of policy is located at the encounter justice and development. Such as justice,
development is both a result, a process that achieves this result and an attitude that allows this process. It
would however be tempting to consider that "development" and "justice" do not belong to the same
register. "Justice" is a term that refers to the moral world, the normative, the axiological. "Development"
comes from empirical observation and the cognitive. Justice is the rationale for development while
development is the way of justice.(…) Justice and development are both inseparable from an image of the
future rooted in the present act.”
(Lévy, 2012, p. 151)
15
If justice and development are two ways of talking about the future of a society built as of today, it is precisely the
seamless movements between the register of justice “a term that refers to the moral world, the normative, the
axiological” and that of development “com[ing] from empirical observation and the cognitive” (Lévy, 2012, p. 151) that
does not enable a critical consideration of the conversion of the latter into the former. In other words, the argument does
not offer a clear identification of the moment where normative values are formed, blurring their traceability in the dialogic
empirics-theory.
When Lévy states that justice resides in the successful development of the city as a city, he advances directions for this
development which as integral do the concept of the city: high level of urbanity, public mobility, and sociological mixity.
This concept, the author claims, was constructed in a process of empiric observation, and “eidetic reduction”, that is, a
conceptual construction (Lévy, 2012, p. 167). However, can we sustain that a concept constructed in this fashion detains
normative value? Where, in the tension between observations of reality and conceptual reduction, is the identification
of desirability encountered?
“(…)[C]ompetence and capacity are not opposites but two perspectives on the same thing, the notion of
capacity is the specification of a freedom-oriented individual construction of public goods (cultural capital,
etc.).”
(Lévy, 2012, p. 140)
16
A first answer seems to reside in the legitimacy of goods when treated as effective public goods. We have seen throughout
that the co-production of public goods by the individual and society is considered desirable. We should observe, however,
that this concept is a mathematical theorem conceived to analyse the possibility of conditions of pareto optimum in
welfare economics, in the cases where goods cannot be produced and consumed privately (Samuelson P. A., 1955, p.
350). If we take notice that “many results in normative economics are mathematical theorems with a primary analytical
function” and that “[e]ndowing them with a normative content may be confusing, because they are most useful in
clarifying ethical values and do not imply by themselves that these values must be endorsed” (Fleurbaey, 2004)
17
, we can
admit that the conditions that qualify goods as public do not necessarily attribute it a consensual positive value.
Religiosity, for instance, could be seen to comply with the three corollaries without us having to endorse it as a good of
positive valuation. We could reject this example by evoking that public goods imply, at least to some extent, social
provision. This places them in realm of public scrutiny and democratic processes but we could argue that public goods
15
“(…) [L]a dimension éthique du politique se situe à la rencontre de la justice et du développement. Comme la justice, le
développement est à la fois un résultat, un processus qui parvient à ce résultat et une attitude qui permet ce processus. On serait
pourtant tenté de considérer que « développement » et « justice » n’appartiennent pas au même registre. « Justice » est un terme qui
renvoie au monde moral, au normatif, à l’axiologique. « Développement » relève de l’observation empirique et du cognitif. La justice
est la justification du développement tandis que le développement est le moyen de la justice. (…) Justice et développement sont tous
deux indissociables d’une image du futur ancré dans l’agir présent.” (Lévy, 2012, p. 151).
16
“(…) [C]ompétence et capacité ne sont pas des contraires mais deux points de vue sur la même chose, la notion de capacité étant la
spécification d’une liberté orientée vers la construction individuelle de biens publics (capitaux culturels, notamment).” (Lévy, 2012, p.
140)
17
This author sustains this remark with a Samuelson quote: “It is a legitimate exercise of economic analysis to examine the
consequences of various value judgments, whether or not they are shared by the theorist.” (Samuelson 1947, p. 220)” (Fleurbaey,
2004).

7
that remain public goods are telling of society´s values and goals. I call this the historical argument; it permits arguing
justice of spatial arrangements in relation to society’s will. We recall that Lévy mobilises the concept to express the spatial
translation of the ethical principle of compatibility of spatiality and space (Lévy, 2012, p. 154)
18
. If we intertwine it with
the concept of capability, the desirability of goods produced by the individual and society becomes clearer. We have seen
that Lévy decomposes the concept of capability into two facets: competence and capacity (Lévy, 2012, p. 141). We can
establish a parallel with Sen’s dual approach to freedom. Sen considers that society as a whole benefits from individual
capabilities as instrumental freedoms (described as background conditions that permit individuals to choose a valued
outcome), but he also thinks of individual capabilities as substantive freedoms, that is, choices according to one’s
preferences and goals. These choices may or may not align with duty, commitment and overall welfare (for example,
religious practices) (Sen, 2010, pp. 231-232, 236). In order to resolve conflicts that may emerge from individuals’
substantive freedoms, Sen works within the framework of social choice theory, where prioritisation is achieved through
interpersonal comparison (simply, increasing capabilities of the poor ranks higher than increasing the capabilities of the
non-poor). As we have seen, Lévy rejects this solution. By framing capability within the framework of individual/society
compatibility, the author subtracts from the notion the set of abilities that refer to individual strategies which do not
concur to society’s objectives: “[t]o develop ones capabilities, is to be able to get in interaction with the rest of society to
help to produce a public good.” (Lévy, 2012, p. 140). In other words, we can think that Lévy retains only the first definition
of Sen
19
. Another possible interpretation is that Lévy is implying the convergence between individual and societal
intentionality as a consequence of a politics of justice based on the development of capability understood as capacity of
ethics
20
: “[w]e can, in this sense, speak of the ethical capacity (to enter into a [an ethical] dialogue)” (Lévy, 2012, p. 141).
In fact that view would be compatible with Sen’s reading, for whom the open aspect of capabilities is essential. What we
value and what we have reason to be identifying as unfreedom not only changes with societal development but is a result
of public reasoning (Sen, 2010, p. 242). I will call this the ethical argument (to which I will return later).
“The model of Amsterdam acknowledges that the urban living involves making society and enter in society
in every moment of daily life. Instead, the model of Johannesburg displays a refusal, whenever possible, of
the societal consequences of the technical solution of a concentrated space.”
(Lévy, 2012, p. 160)
21
.
Another possible answer comes forth if we take three public goods – urbanity, mobility and public space – and analyse
how their positive valuation emerges.
Urbanity: Exemplifying the high level of urbanity considered as desirable, the model of Amsterdam is also seen to favour
serendipity and creativity, “made of movement and cognitive or emotional shifts” (Lévy, 2012, p. 160). While Lévy does
not reference scientific proof for a causal relationship between habitat and creative force, one could still argue that the
observed city’s increased productivity in relation to a space without cities, is a sufficient reason for a positive valuation of
cities. I call this the efficiency argument; it allows arguing justice based on the relationship between different territories’
productivity and their capacity to enjoy its fruits.
18
Samuelson’s (1954) definition has two characteristics: being non-excludable, that is, accessible to everyone, and non-rivalrous,
meaning that the use of a public good by some does not preclude its use by others. Levy adds a third characteristic: a public good’s
utility increases with the increase of the number of its users. Levy’s use of this concept respects the three corollaries while emphasizing
the systemic production of public goods between society and individual (knowledge, health, and politics) (Lévy, 2012, p. 125), (Lévy,
2011, p. 53).
19
In this reading the reference to the individual metrics of capability is contradictory: [t]his is precisely the goal of a politics of justice:
the commensurability used to produce the immeasurable, that is to say something whose metrics belong to the actor and to nobody
else.” (Lévy, 2012, p. 140) .
20
“On peut, en ce sens, parler de capacité (à entrer dans un dialogue) éthique.” (Lévy, 2012, p. 141).
21
« Le modèle d’Amsterdam prend acte que l’habiter urbain implique de faire société et d’entrer en société dans chaque moment du
quotidien. Au contraire, le modèle de Johannesburg affiche un refus, chaque fois que c’est possible, des conséquences sociétales de
l’option technique en faveur d’un espace concentré. » (Lévy, 2012, p. 160).

8
"However, to discuss with our cohabitants of other neighbourhoods, other regions or other countries, the
visit is helpful. Mobility is also an integral part of an ethic of hospitality and citizenship. This is a public good
co-produced by all the mobile and the society that makes this ethics possible."
(Lévy, 2011, p. 54)
22
.
Mobility: The cognitive argument re-emerges in a clearer association with ethics formation through the definition of
mobility as a spatial public good. Lévy suggests that co-presence resulting from mobility is itself constitutive of ethics of
hospitality and citizenship
23
. When we would tend to agree that these ethical values are positive, we would also agree
that mobility is necessarily positive; Lévy does not explain where these statements come from.
“Diversity is not a policy of redistribution of “isolable” private goods, it is a contribution to equality of access
and to capacities. Public space does not distribute money to the poor, he gives to the poor as to the rich the
opportunity to experience productivity and creativity by exposure to otherness. That's it, it is not nothing.”
(Lévy, 2012, p. 160)
24
Public space: We can observe a similar reasoning on the positive qualities of public space, more specifically on its political
component of civility. Civility, expressed in the bodily and perhaps vocal negotiation of norms for autonomy preservation
in integration, is required by the inhabiting of public space. It simultaneously constructs the social and an ethics of
interaction (Lévy, Société, 2012, pp. 159-160).
What is common to the positive consideration of these goods is that they are seen to benefit from exposure to high levels
of diversity and they (at least the last two), take part in the production of ethics. We can link these two observations and
draw the hypothesis that ethics benefit from the cognitive experience of diversity. We could hypothethise a
decomposition of this link as follows: city’s provocation of the contact with difference develops alterité (tolerance to
difference); this tolerance somehow takes part in developing competence for sociability and competence for the political
construction of society’s development project. This link would render explicit what Lévy seems to be saying: a politics of
justice should allow cities to be fully so because it is the being together in cities, per se, which is a force towards justice.
The role of the city, in individual and society’s development, is also that of producing the capacity of being ethical. Would
this link be supported empirically, we would have a ethical argument, useful in arguing justice on the basis of the
processes that cultivate a just attitude, sustaining a just process towards a just results. Completing the triad of the
Rawlsian formulation.
Conclusion
In conclusion, three lines of argument seem to support Lévy’s propositions for just spatial arrangement. The first concerns
historical continuity that reads in current tendencies – intense urbanisation or valorisation of public transports (Lévy,
2011, p. 51) – a sign of society’s future preference. The second concerns efficiency and increase in utility. The third line
concerns the cognitive advantages of these spatial arrangements, in particular their contribution to the making of a more
ethical society. Only inexplicit in Lévy’s approach, the third line opens up a research agenda that could strengthen the
persuasive power of the rest of the construction.
22
« Cependant, pour discuter avec nos cohabitants d’autres quartiers, d’autres régions ou d’autres pays, la visite est utile. La mobilité
est donc aussi partie intégrante d’une éthique de l’hospitalité et de la citoyenneté. C’est un bien public coproduit par l’ensemble des
mobiles et par la société qui rend cette éthique possible. » (Lévy, L'espace demande justice, 2011, p. 54).
23
The political intentionality attributed to mobility is also exaggerated – a visit that allows discussion with far inhabitant (Lévy, 2011,
p. 54). We can imagine the use of mobility for discussion only among the members of a closed community.
24
« La mixité n’est pas une politique de redistribution de biens privés isolables, c’est une contribution à l’égalité des accès et des
capacités. L’espace public ne distribue pas d’argent aux pauvres, il donne aux pauvres comme aux riches la possibilité d’une expérience
de la productivité et de la créativité par l’exposition à l’altérité. C’est tout ; ce n’est pas rien. »(Lévy, 2012, p. 160).

9
Beyond the problem of legitimacy of public goods treated above, a second problem remains, particularly clear in the
suggestion that small cities should rank low as recipients of solidary funds. I will briefly open the chantier, through the
enunciation of three critiques.
The first critique regards the openness of freedom to the multiplicity of human wants. The notion of capability is
supposedly dissociated from lifestyle. Yet, an attack on peri-urban lifestyle is indeed taking place in Lévy’s argument.
Whether space introduces a limit to the viability of openness and condemns contrasting models of urbanity to a treatment
of mutual exclusion should be further investigated before accepting a significant trade-off against liberty.
The second critique regards normativity in relation to merit, which is contradictory with the Rawlsian rejection the
arbitrariness of unequal background conditions affecting merit. The justness of an unequal treatment of territories
(justified by an overall development of society towards equality and freedom) resolves unequal access to public goods of
individuals by accounting them responsible for the conditions of enjoyment they place themselves in. This can be seen as
an assignment of justice based on desert, the basis of desert being the “good” or “bad” choice of residence location (the
good of bad being determined by the contribution/detriment to the choice to the development of the “good” urbanity
model). This approach ignores inequality of spatial capitals of habitat that participate in choice. Lévy acknowledges that
this capital is a ponderation of three capitals
25
: 1) relational spatial capital, measuring the difficulty of the movement in
relation to the degree of access to information; 2) capital regarding the cost of change, comprising the affective weighting
of interpersonal and biographic valorisations associated to the present habitat; and 3) the environmental capital,
associated to practices of daily life (Lévy, 1994, pp. 239-240). We can see how in certain cases – for instance where the
peri-urban sprawl touches small towns and villages and includes dwellers who were already there – low relational spatial
capital and high affective cost can render the arbitration in favour of the city centre disproportionally difficult and costly.
The third critique considers the conversion of societal capabilities into individual freedoms. It is important to recall the
formulation of this right as a droit-liberté and not a droit-créance. The management of mobility is a capital that depends
on competence –”knowing how to organize a good move at the right time with the right metrics” – and experience (Lévy,
2011, p. 53). This raises the question of whether the potential of mobility of a society – an instrumental freedom that
provides the background conditions that permit individuals to value a mobility solution – in automatically embedded in
an individual’s effective mobility capital, from where the exercise of this freedom could derive. Lévy would argue that
reasoning in a way that protects fragile individuals from putting “their identity in motion” necessarily detracts the
possibility of increasing their own “acting capabilities” (Lévy, 2012, p. 147). We encounter a problem of temporality: until
we live in a society where the basic capabilities are universally embedded, does a project of developmental solidarity risk
excluding the least equipped individuals?
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25
In the example provided, the change of habitat concerns change of address within one city and not, as I haven in mind,
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10
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