The Imperative of De‐Marginalisation

On what basis, if any, can we legitimately justify spatial integrationist policies? Through a relational egalitarian lens, this article disentangles two phenomena that the wrong of residential segregation typically conflates: minimal segregation (mere clustering) and marginalisation (the production of unequal social standing through spatially mediated relations of disadvantage and disrespect). I argue, in contrast to Elizabeth Anderson's influential ideal of integration, that it is marginalisation, not minimal segregation, that does the normative work for relational egalitarians. This grounds the imperative of de‐marginalisation. The analysis clarifies the relational egalitarian position on urban clustering, provides a unified framework for understanding the disagreements between Anderson and her critics (Shelby, Young, Marcuse), and articulates the distinctions needed to evaluate social‐mixing policies. Such policies, I contend, may be prudentially advisable or pragmatically sensible, but they are not as such imperatives of justice: their justification is contingent and defeasible, and ultimately turns on whether they reduce marginalisation.