(THIS ARTICLE IS MACHINE TRANSLATED by Google from Norwegian)
Inequalities increase and access to power, resources and opportunities becomes more limited for many people. At the same time, the injustice becomes clearer through global crises such as climate change and covid-19 pandemicone. Is it possible with fair distribution, transformative changes and empathy enough to build more inclusive societies?
Eight out of ten cities in the world have become more diverse than thirty years ago.
Despite unprecedented global wealth and opportunity, eight out of ten have byer in the world have become more diverse than 30 years ago. Even the most equal societies experience asymmetrical and unfair growth. This means that approximately 3,5 billion urban residents today live in places where access to power, resources, opportunities and income are increasingly limited. Let me comment:
Difference
Relations in the world are becoming increasingly different and lopsided. Difference is not a frozen image at a given point in time. It is a sad, moving film where new opportunities, such as innovations and the use of new technology, are dominated by a group at the expense of the majority. It is not just about differentiated access to benefits, but about a lack of intention and ability to distribute.
Injustice
It is not just a theoretical concept, but shaped a reality with suffering faces. Multiple, simultaneous and interconnected global crises – climate change, the covid-19 pandemic, conflict, energy, food and cost of living – have exacerbated existing inequalities and highlight a world marked by injustice. This is not just a word or a theory, but a deep-rooted practice and behavior that creates walls instead of bridges, barriers instead of ties, various forms of separation that reproduce a persistent geography of suffering for some. It reminds us that "we are all neither in the same boat nor in the same storm". Covid-19 was, for example, an X-ray of how unfair and divided our society is. In many countries, several times as many died within ethnic minorities than in the rest of society. In some countries had working classmigrants as much as up to 90 percent of all infections. While the illiterate and urban poor died from the pandemic, billionaires grew richer and richer. Income inequality was a strong determinant of who died.
solidarity
Covid-19 showed us an obvious gap. The pandemic is a reality that not only exposes us, but also reveals endless possibilities for change. At the height of the pandemic, we saw that borders expanded, but also that forms of isolation re-
produced in individuals, cities and countries. Rousseau's social contract faltered, and hatred and xenophobia arose between people.
The new normal reminds us that we are not isolated islands, but relationships, bridges and moorings. As the Persian poet Rumi wrote, this is a call to understand the importance of learning to live in the "confluence of the sea and the world", in the need to rebuild an 'outer self'. To relate to other people's reality without judging it.
Covid-19 has largely been a crisis linked to place. We must learn to build new maps of closeness, density and cohesion, and with them a new pedagogy for the social.
Streets, parks, common areas and public areas must again be able to expose us to other people's space, to the public, to ecological and sustainabilityige neighborhood. A renewed vision where the sense of identity, belonging and social cohesion can flourish.
Resilience
Resilience is a strategy for maintaining the status quo. Resilience is a cry to resist, absorb, adapt and transform. An invitation to rebuild – better. This is a strategy to reduce the risk to the most vulnerable people, and to the places where they live, so that they can withstand future disasters and shocks. It is not necessarily a cry for change.
Rousseau's social contract faltered, and hatred and xenophobia arose between people.
Future cities with fairer societies must have one resistanceskill that can promote persistence, more as a palliative measure – perhaps more than a real change that confronts structural inequality and an unjust society. Rather, a development path with a justice that divides and a change that transforms – core elements for real development.
A new one is needed social contract together with Empathyone that expands our world and outlines physical and social spaces where interpersonal relationships, strong institutions and a politics that fosters a new solidarity can flourish. A new idea of resilience.
See also some pictures in the main newspaper MODERN TIMES.
Moreno is the former director of research and innovation in the UN's settlement programme.
He has made some of his award-winning photos available to us.
