Architectures of inequality? Employing a human rights perspective to study the built environment of the city of York, United Kingdom

联合国赤贫和人权问题特别报告员在2018年访问联合王国结束时断言：“世界第五大经济体……五分之一的人口生活在贫困中”(2018年联合国人权理事会声明)。许多地方民间社会组织(CSO)的报告强调了他的结论。在这些观察的基础上，这项研究调查了这样一个问题：在约克市和利兹市的公共空间中，贫穷和不平等的架构在多大程度上是显而易见的，这对实现人权有什么影响？为了回答这一问题，该研究旨在：a)确定不平等和贫困在约克和利兹的公共空间建筑环境中的表现方式；b)审查产生这种环境的法律、社会、经济、政治或行政条件；c)考虑建筑环境在多大程度上显化或隐蔽城市空间中的贫穷和不平等，并探讨这对实现社会经济权利的影响。这项研究的核心是数据收集的定性、混合方法。该项目以两种研究方法--半结构化访谈和参与人种学观察--为基础，通过社会法律视角进行分析。比较研究的临时选择，虽然并不是没有困难，但有助于分析两个非常不同的城市环境。该项目以其调查公共空间为指导，以确定参与者的类别：特别是将该空间用于工作、作为住所、无家可住时作为庇护所的个人，以及作为游客的个人，以及民间社会组织和公共行政部门。无论是市中心还是较远的、经常和不经常使用的、作为景点和日常设施参观的城市遗址将被确定用于观察。有几种文献启发了这项研究。城市公共空间产生了强大的学术影响力，占据了城市地理学以及社会学和政治学领域(Bodnar 2015；Sengupta 2017)。这里特别令人感兴趣的是与城市证券化实践有关的地理研究的一个方面(Raco 2003；LICHT2017)。这项研究的特点是对他者看似内在的过程感到不安：该项目将敌对建筑作为排他性景观的物理表达进行讨论，并探索将这种建筑解释为“环境社会控制”的形式(Petty 2016)。支撑调查的是对新举措的关注，这些举措正在将列斐伏尔有影响力的“城市权利”重塑为一项可操作的人权。将城市权利从概念化推进到可实施化，需要深入研究社会经济权利，这是国际人权法长期研究不足的一个领域(Grant 2012)。虽然地理学家长期以来一直在研究日常生活和建筑环境，但对社会经济权利的直接讨论还不够深入。因此，对这一项目采取以权利为基础的方法既有创新性，又有启发性；解释权利的义务、补救办法和性别方面的问题，如住房、食品和卫生设施，直接与建筑环境有关。城市在国际法律秩序中不断变化的作用正在成为法律学者的一个重要研究领域：该项目可能有助于了解城市如何对生活在其范围内的人实现人权产生积极和消极影响。影响也可能发生在学术界之外，特别是在城市管理和(基层)民间社会组织领域。在寻求确定公共空间建设可以影响人权的方式时，或许可以促进对规划和决策方面的良好做法的理解，以产生真正的“公共”城市空间。

At the end of his visit to the United Kingdom in 2018, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights asserted that: "[in] the world's fifth largest economy... a fifth of the population live in poverty" (UNSR Statement 2018). His conclusions are underscored by reports of many local civil society organisations (CSOs). Building on these observations, this research investigates the question, 'to what extent is an 'architecture of poverty and inequality' evident in the public spaces of the cities of York and Leeds, and what implications does this have for the realisation of human rights?' To answer this, the study aims to: a) identify the ways in which inequality and poverty are manifest in the built environment of York and Leeds's public spaces; b) examine legal, social, economic, political or administrative conditions that produce such environments; c) consider the extent to which the built environment visibilises, or invisibilises, poverty and inequality in urban space and to explore the impact of this on the realisation of socio-economic rights. Central to the study is a qualitative, mixed method approach to data collection. The project is anchored in two research methods - semi-structured interviewing and ethnographic participant observations - analysed through a socio-legal lens. The provisional choice of a comparative study, whilst not without difficulties, lends itself to analysis of two richly diverse urban environments. The project is guided by its public spaces of enquiry to identify categories of participants: particularly individuals using the space for work, as a home, as shelter in the absence of a home, and as tourists, as well as CSOs and public administrations. Urban sites that are both central and further out, frequently and infrequently used, visited as attractions and as everyday amenities will be identified for observations. Several strands of literature have inspired this research. Urban public space has produced a strong scholarship, occupying the fields of urban geography as well as sociology and political science (Bodnar 2015; Sengupta 2017). Of particular interest here is a facet of geographical study concerned with urban securitisation practices (Raco 2003; Licht 2017). This research is characterised by an uneasiness at seemingly inherent processes of othering: the project engages with discussion of hostile architecture as a physical expression of an exclusionary landscape and explores interpretations of such architecture as forms of "environmental social control" (Petty 2016). Underpinning enquiries is attentiveness to emerging moves to recast Lefebvre's influential 'right to the city' as an operational human right. Advancing the right to the city from conceptualisation to operationalisation requires in depth examination of socio-economic rights, a persistently understudied area of international human rights law (Grant 2012). Whilst everyday life and the built environment has long been studied by geographers, direct discussion of socio-economic rights is underdeveloped. Thus, taking a rights-based approach to this project is both innovative and illuminating; interpreting the obligations, remedies and gendered aspects of rights such as housing, food and sanitation directly in relation to the built environment. The changing role of cities in the international legal order is emerging as a substantial area of examination for legal scholars: this project may contribute knowledge to understanding how cities can positively and negatively impact the realisation of human rights for those living within their limits. Impact may also occur outside of academia, particularly in the area of urban administrations and (grassroots) CSOs. In seeking to identify the ways in which the construction of public space can influence human rights, it may be possible to advance an understanding of good practice in planning and decision-making to produce truly 'public' urban spaces.