The Concept of Justice in Regional Planning: Justice as Fairness

Abstract

Contemporary planning issues often involve a number of parties whose interests or objectives conflict. Equitable resolution of such conflicts requires that consideration be given to the distribution of losses that are implicit in alternative planning decisions. In this article the concept of fairness is explored as a strategy for formulating decisions according to their distributional aspects. Three major elements of conflict situations are given attention: 1) the interested parties; 2) the claims of these parties, and whether or not they are measurable in commensurate units; and 3) the objectivity of decision makers. Two examples are traced out, one where the interested parties' claims are measurable in commensurate units and one where they are not, the latter being examined in a maximin framework. We conclude that fairness obliges the decision maker to pay particular attention to the losses borne by each of the interested parties rather than to a summary index of society's net of gains over losses.