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Justice has always been a major topic within political philosophy, but scholars in the behavioural sciences have largely avoided normative statements. After the urban uprisings of the 1960s and 1970s, however, leftist scholars adopted a critical approach that, while not specifying a concept of justice, injected a moral dimension into their work. Within urban studies, the argument of Henri Lefebvre, who defined space as a social construction and who maintained that all groups should have a ‘right to the city’, became particularly influential. During the 1990s, scholars began to be more explicit about the concept of justice. Three main approaches to urban justice were developed: (1) communicative rationality; (2) recognition of diversity; (3) the just city/spatial justice. Differences between the communicative and just city approaches revolved around emphasis on democracy versus equity, process versus outcome. I argue that democracy, diversity, and equity are the three governing principles for urban justice...