The distribution of capital forms between cities and suburbs and their impact on social justice in space

Questions of justice have been raised in recent years when contending with the social costs of urban sprawl. But this field of inquiry suffers from the difficulty of translating the abstract notion of justice into measurable spatial indices. The aim of this paper is to empirically measure the liberal notion of justice in the metropolitan region of Tel Aviv by adopting Pierre Bourdieu’s theory of three forms of capital. Under this theory, the formation of economic, cultural, and social capital in the individual’s living environment determines the person’s exposure to different sets of life-chances (i.e., capabilities), thus influencing equality of opportunity (i.e., social justice) in space. The analysis reveals that suburban inhabitants benefit from a larger accumulation of the three forms of capital than do urban inhabitants. Accumulation of these capitals has a positive effect on exposure to life-chances, thus enhancing spatial segregation between cities and suburbs.