Public Markets and Social Justice in Cities: A South-North comparative study of markets’ social justice potential and the role of urban governance

Public markets have historically been plural spaces with potential to support social justice, for example through accessible work opportunities and inclusive social spaces. Yet, recent research from multiple disciplines highlights markets’ critical and contested state in contemporary urban environments, due to trading decline, increasing urban marginalisation, and exclusionary redevelopment, often exacerbated by inappropriate or ineffective urban governance interventions. This research explores the relationship between public markets, social justice and urban governance, with the purpose of contributing to more comprehensive understandings of public markets’ potentials to support social justice in cities, and the role played by urban governance in determining this relationship. In order to do so, a relational comparative study was carried out, exploring multiple cases of markets and their governance in two cities across the global South and North. Cases were analysed with a multidimensional social justice framework based on Fainstein’s (2010) three pillars: equity, diversity and democracy. Inspired by critical debates around epistemic justice, the thesis also reflects about the potential for alternative development and governance for markets through Southern more holistic conceptions of social justice, which also allow for the critical consideration of the Northern situatedness of Fainstein’s (2010) framework. Markets and their governance in Belo Horizonte (Brazil) and Birmingham (United Kingdom) were investigated using qualitative ethnographically-informed methods. Findings reveal the influence of contextual aspects at different scales, but also some commonalities: markets in both cities experience threats to sustainability caused by retail obsolescence and inadequate markets’ governance. Yet, markets in both contexts continue to support social justice in the cities, especially in terms of equity and diversity. A further commonality is the establishment of new systems of markets’ governance in Belo Horizonte and Birmingham, with forward-looking plans for markets showing on the one hand the undeniable influence of global trends of entrepreneurial governance in the prospects of markets, and on the other, attempts to combine economic pragmatism and social justice priorities, particularly in Belo Horizonte. In juxtaposing markets in these two cities, this research supports South-North learning and more creative and holistic approaches to markets’ governance in contemporary cities.