GLOBALIZATION, SOCIAL EXCLUSION, AND URBAN SUSTAINABLITY: Creating the Socially Inclusive City

1. GLOBALIZATION, SOCIAL EXCLUSION, AND URBAN SUSTAINABLITY: Creating the Socially Inclusive City Prepared for the Great Lakes Urban Exchange March 14, 2009 Lynn C. Todman, Ph.D. Director, Adler Institute on Social Exclusion Adler School of Professional Psychology, Chicago

2. ADLER INSTITUTE ON SOCIAL EXCLUSION (ISE) • Social exclusion refers to the ways groups are denied access to the rights, opportunities, and resources commonly available to ordinary people. • The ISE acts like a prism to reveal social barriers that block participation in mainstream life. • Through research, education, and outreach programs, the ISE shows a broad audience how laws, public policies, institutional behaviors, and private beliefs cause social exclusion. • The ISE encourages the general public to engage in civic action projects designed to reduce or eliminate social exclusion.

3. ResearchAnalyze the ways in which structural features of society condition human welfare, e.g., developing a list of indicators of social exclusion • EducationStimulate public discussion on the causes of social exclusion and propose potential solutions, e.g., using educational gatherings and publications to illuminate the causes of exclusion • OutreachEngage in practical work that addresses social disadvantage, e.g., responding to community-identified needs and problems through collaborative projects

4. Summary: Thesis and Assumptions • Thesis … • Social exclusion - Tool for (re)framing the way we think about urban development and for thinking about how to create economically, socially and politically sustainable cities. • Assumptions… • Globalization leads to economic (income) inequalities. • Increased income inequalities lead to increased political inequalities; two are mutually-reinforcing; unequal economic, political, and social arrangements become entrenched. • Those on the advantaged side of inequality are able to systematically marginalize those who are not; these marginalized people are the “socially excluded.” • Social exclusion creates conditions that are amenable to social, political and economic instability which has, in turn, the potential to undermine the long-term development and sustainability of cities.

5. Summary: Thesis and Assumptions (cont’d.) As the economic and political fortunes of those who benefit from globalization rise, they use their powers to erect structures (e.g., laws, policies, institutions, attitudes) that systematically marginalize those whose interests would contravene their own. Those processes of social exclusion create conditions that are amenable to social, political, and economic instability that threaten to undermine the development and sustainability of cities.

6. Summary: Recommendations • Recommendation … • Globalization-driven urban development efforts should be evaluated and monitored for their exclusionary effects and revised to … • eliminate exclusionary processes; • protect those for whom development efforts nevertheless place at risk of exclusion… To ensure the economic, political, and social sustainability of our cities.

7. What is Social Exclusion? • Social Exclusion is …a conceptual framework that characterizes contemporary forms of social disadvantage, social exclusion is defined as processes (and conditions) in which people are systematically blocked from the rights, resources and opportunities that are normally available to members of the society in which they reside and which are essential for social integration.

8. Key Attributes Social Exclusion (SE) • Relational: SE is primarily concerned with major social ruptures, disconnects and separations among groups within a society. • Multidimensional: SE has many dimensions: e.g., economic, political, spatial, civic, cultural, and judicial. • Dynamic: SE is an evolutionary and cumulative process: exclusion in one domain in one point in time can leads to exclusion in other domains in other points in time. • Relative: SE is measured and defined in terms of prevailing social norms in a particular society at a particular time. • Active: SE is typically a consequence of the actions and decisions of “agents” over which the excluded have little or no influence.

9. Globalization (Development Strategy) Economic Inequality Political Inequality Spatial Marginalization Social Exclusion (Multiple Dimensions) From Globalization to Social Exclusion: The Case of Chicago

10. Change in Poverty Levels in Chicago Communities: 1970-2000 Source: Nathalie P. Voorhees Center, University of Illinois at Chicago, 2004

11. The Multiple Dimensions of Social Exclusion Spatial marginalization predisposes the marginalized to many other dimensions of social exclusion. • Employment (high unemployment & underemployment rates) • fewer job opportunities in new locations • difficult to access central city job market due longer, more costly, more complicated commutes • Education and Training (reflected in poorer educational outcomes) • displacement is associated with loss of classroom time • lower tax base translates into lower per capita K-12 educational expenditures • more difficult to access specialized training opportunities

12. The Multiple Dimensions of Social Exclusion Spatial marginalization predisposes the marginalized to many other dimensions of social exclusion. • Health Care (reflected in health disparities) • health care is linked to employment status, may loose access if employment is compromised • fewer services and facilities (notably specialist) in new locations • travel may become longer, more costly and more complicated • relocation may be closer to environmental toxins • Public Services • fewer social services per capita in new location • fewer/less reliable public services (e.g., trash collection, street cleaning & repairs, snow removal) • fewer public transit nodes/routes

13. The Multiple Dimensions of Social Exclusion Spatial marginalization predisposes the marginalized to many other dimensions of social exclusion. • Amenities • recreation and culture (theaters, cinemas, public art programming, park equipment) • shopping (food, clothing)

14. The Multiple Dimensions of Social Exclusion Possible mitigating factors.... • Protective and Social Support Systems • dismantled/fractured social support systems (neighbors, family, friends) • Political Participation – Agenda setting and decision making • physically outside of the city • diluted within the city • Result: The political agenda-setting and decision-making that might increase social inclusion is controlled by those who have a vested interest in maintaining the exclusivity of rights, resources and opportunities.

15. Dilution of Registered Voters in Public Housing Source: Board of Election Commissioners for the City of Chicago, Cook County Clerk; analyzed by The Chicago Reporter, January 2008.

16. Some Behavioral Implications of Social Exclusion Social Exclusion catalyzes a series of inner processes • Emotional numbness • Loss of empathy • Loss of controlled processing functions, such as self-regulation which leads to increases in impulsive behaviors, such as aggression, violence, short-sightedness, and other forms of anti-social behavior. Upshot: Socially excluded people may lose their willingness to self-regulate; that is, they may be reluctant to restrain anti-social impulses under conditions in which there is no perceived benefit (i.e., chance of inclusion).

17. Social Psychologists Conclude “Sociologists have observed that excluded classes of persons in many societies exhibit various undesirable patterns of behavior, including aggression…lack of pro-social behavior, self-destructive indulgences, and poor self-control. Our research suggests that these are not necessarily inner traits of society’s downtrodden, so much as normal reactions that all sorts of people exhibit when they find themselves to be excluded by others.” Source: Baumeister et al,. 2007. Thwarting the Need to Belong: Understanding the Interpersonal and Inner Effects of Social Exclusion

18. Globalization Social Exclusion Anti-Social Behaviors Social, Political, Economic Instability Unsustainable Cities From Globalization to Social Exclusion, Instability, and Unsustainable Cities

19. Recommendation • Social Exclusion Impact Assessment -- • Assess and monitor globalization-driven urban development efforts for their exclusionary effects – specifically, for their distributional and non-economic effects on the lives of people and their communities.

20. “We have to (ensure) that globalization produces fairer results and promotes social justice. And we have to make sure that it is environmentally, economically, socially and politically sustainable.” UN Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon Remarks to the Governing Body International Labour Organization Geneva, 19 November 2008

21. Thank you! For more information on the Adler Institute on Social Exclusion: www.adler.edu