Urban distance is more than a question of metres—it is perceived, lived, and embodied, often shaped by gender, class, race, and emotional geography. In this study, spatial relationships in the city are interrogated not through Cartesian logic but through affective cartographies, where walking a block may carry radically different meanings depending on who is walking and under what conditions. The authors propose that urban proximity does not guarantee connection, and that cities are composed of invisible thresholds marked by fear, trust, desire, and vulnerability. Using ethnographic fragments, sensory narratives, and feminist urban theory, the article shows how distance is generated not by space alone but by layers of emotional dissonance, systemic exclusion, and symbolic violence. Children are kept indoors due to insecurity, neighbours remain strangers despite physical closeness, and daily routines are choreographed around avoidance. These dynamics reflect deeper structures of segregation, both social and affective. Rather than seeking objective metrics, the authors advocate for an urban epistemology attentive to bodily geographies, where what is near might be emotionally unreachable, and what is far can be longed for or feared. This approach reframes the concept of urban planning, shifting from infrastructural optimisation to a politics of recognition and care, where cities must be read not only by their built form but by the emotional landscapes they generate and conceal.
Cociña, C. and Gaitán Almeida, P. (2019). Las distancias que son en la ciudad: percepciones, espacios afectivos y cuerpos urbanos. URBS. Revista de Estudios Urbanos y Ciencias Sociales, 9(1), 117–128.¡
