a critical evaluation on the concept of justice in planning process

2.2.4. Justice as a Cultural Value in the Post-Structuralist Approach
In contrast to distributional justice, Young focuses on cultural justice rather than
economic considerations. Young suggests the handling of justice with respect to the
process of distribution in itself rather than distributional values. These two problems she
defined express the insufficiency of these paradigms. “..first, it tends to focus on
thinking about social justice on the allocation of social positions, especially jobs. This
focus tends to ignore the social structure and institutional context that often help
determine distributive patterns. Of particular importance to the analyses that follow are
issues of decision-making power and procedures, division of labor, and culture...”
(Young;1990;15).
For all these problems, Young places domination and oppression concepts into
the center of her own justice concept. In Young’s justice concept, institutions that do
not involve pressure but the production of group differences and respect for them are
found to be necessary, in place of a system that welds and thus eliminates differences.
In a <strong>critical</strong> theory of social justice, she suggests taking into consideration relations and
processes produced and reproduced in distributional relationships, emphasizing the
importance of the power relations, the process and culture in the decision making
process. Young also puts emphasis on the insufficiency of distributional justice
principles, in an environment where differences in urban space such as marginalization,
isolation and polarization are made visible (Young, 1990, 47-53). Young deals with the
distribution processes of determination and domination in the reconstruction of social
structure processes and relations in three different dimensions: 1) Centralized
companies and bureaucratic pressure. 2) Decision making mechanism in local
government and the hidden face of this mechanism in the redistribution 3) The isolation
and disintegration process within the urban area, between the cities and in the suburbs.
(Young, 1990)
When the question whether the justice issue will come to an end in urban areas
where the most successful just distribution is realized by means of distributional justice
is considered from Young’s perspective the answer will be negative. Can a just society
be really successful when the regulation principles are dealt with only from economic
and/or legal aspects? The criticisms of cultural approaches are based on the most serious
problems and restrictions/limitations that distributional justice principles and political
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