Paper short abstract:

The paper operationalises the capabilities approach by elaborating a detailed framework of conversion factors to be able to plan urban interventions that address the determinants of inequities and enhance the capabilities of different people in a common area. It then tests the usefulness of the proposed framework by analysing empirical data from a participatory planning process in Brazil.

Paper long abstract:

In the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, all UN Member States have unequivocally committed to leave no one behind (UN SDG 2024). Nonetheless, during the past years, multiple and overlapping crises connected to health, security, and the environment have worsened existing deprivations and segregation dynamics in many cities worldwide, negatively impacting “important matters as the freedom to live long, or the ability to escape avoidable morbidity, or the opportunity to have worthwhile employment, or to live in peaceful and crime-free communities” (Sen 1999, 291). To keep the central promise of the 2030 Agenda, urban interventions that effectively address the complex socio-environmental challenges and achieve equity in promoting well-being are urgently needed during the final years of this Decade of Action. However, up-to-date, a theoretically well-founded guidance for planning such interventions is lacking, as existing concepts, e.g. for the promotion of just cities, have raised doubts about planners’ capacities to make ethical choices for the fair distribution of goods (Campbell and Marshall 1999, 346) in correspondence to prioritised demands of different people (Basta 2016, 12–14).

The article suggests that the capabilities approach serves to guide the planning of interventions that leave no one behind, due to its sensitivity to person-specific circumstances, which, according to Speak, enable it to better address issues of redistribution and recognition compared to other normative approaches concerned with social justice (Speak 2012, 347). The approach understands well-being in terms of individual capabilities or freedoms to achieve ‘beings and doings’ that a person has reason to value (Sen 1989, 43). Sen highlights that individual freedoms to achieve well-being are “constrained by the social, political and economic opportunities that are available” (Sen 1999, xi–xii) and dependent on person-specific contingencies in the ability to convert means into valued ends (Sen 2009, 254f). Robeyns categorises those circumstances as personal, social and environmental conversion factors (Robeyns 2005, 99).

Respecting human diversity in the perception and definition of personal well-being, Sen does not propose a definite list of important capabilities but argues for local specification through democratic procedures containing public discussion and reasoning (Sen 2004, 77f). In this perspective, to ensure reaching the goal of promoting well-being of all people without leaving anyone behind, it is necessary to locally specify and prioritise the kind of capabilities different persons value, to then design interventions that remove obstacles that prevent people from achieving valued capabilities.

In this context, Robeyns indicates that the knowledge of resources needed in face of specific conversion factors generates information on where interventions can be made (Robeyns 2017, 47). While she has exemplarily specified conversion factors, Sebastianelli highlights that up to now, the capabilities literature lacks a well-established ‘conversion factor taxonometry’ with homogeneous categories that are separated from their components, and that are value-neutral, obtaining their characterisation according to the point of application (Sebastianelli 2016, 1–4).

In response to this, the article draws on theoretical reflections from literature to propose a conceptual framework, specifying resources and conversion factors as bundle of determinants that influence the availability of capabilities: In his regional planning methodology, Heidemann reflects on regime-budget-interrelations that are effective upon realising an activity. He specifies budgets of time, tools, and skills that need to be available in sufficient quantities to meet requirements and circumstances established by valid regimes, composed of time slots, standards of social interaction, and set of locations (Heidemann 2004, R36). For each of those general categories, value-neutral components are specified in dialogue with Sen and further authors.

The framework aims to support the localisation of barriers to valued capabilities of different citizens within a locality, for which it explicitly requires local specification: As each locality is a compound of natural conditions and the metabolism of a local society with unique characteristics, Galster suggests that particular attributes can only be observed and measured after a particular location has been specified (Galster 2001, 2112f). This way, the proposed categories are conceived with orientation on Whitehead as non-exhaustive framework to initiate investigations and facilitate the organisation and storage of data, with flexibility to adapt boundaries of categories and alter denominations to locally applicable terms as local cultural and individual variations become clearer during the process (Whitehead 2010). This second phase of adapting the framework in view of a specific locality is done by analysing empirical data from a participatory planning process in Brazil, carried out within the institutional framework of the ‘Professional Residence in Architecture, Urbanism and Engineering’ at the Federal University of Bahia (RAU+E/UFBA).

In a last step, categories with a higher incidence of reported obstacles as well as ‘couplings of disadvantages’ (Sen 2009, 256) are identified to analyse developed proposals for urban interventions in terms of their respect and potential for enhancing locally valued capabilities.

References:

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Whitehead, Tony. 2010. The Cultural Systems Paradigm. EICCARS Working Papers, University of Maryland.