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The paper discusses the connection of the foundational economy approach, a contemporary concept in the public services discourse, with the notion of spatial justice. It argues that the economic relevance of the systems of the foundational economy are important for territorial development issues, too and that they are able to provide a substantial contribution to sustainable and just spatial development. First, the concept of spatial justice is introduced as a spatial planning policy interpretation of equal living conditions. Based on four sub-dimensions, it is shown that access to basic services for all people plays an elementary part in this. The concept shares this perspective with the foundational economy approach. The latter opens up a new perspective on public services and, in addition to the service provision, also emphasises the high significance of foundational economic systems for labour markets. Against this background, a descriptive-statistical evaluation of labour market data on the spatial distribution of the foundational economy at the district level in Bavaria is carried out. Overall, the paper addresses the uneven spatial distribution of the foundational economies and advocates better funding for municipalities in order to achieve spatial justice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The urgent transformation of our energy system towards a sustainable infrastructure of public services regularly fails in regional implementation due to spatial and social requirements of rural areas. Using the example of a transdisciplinary project, this paper identifies dilemmas in the participatory implementation of the regional energy transition and formulates conditions for the success of a spatially sensitive energy transition governance. As shown by the governance approach developed for "co-transformation", context-sensitive forms of participation in co-regulation, co-allocation and co-visioning can contribute to procedural, distributional and future justice and thus to the acceptability of the regional energy transition as a public service infrastructure in rural areas. Central fields of action are open-ended and regionally adapted forms of participation through co-regulation in the planning process, approaches to spatial co-allocation of energy transition-related burdens and local added values, as well as the co-visioning of regional energy futures and regional energy visions to be derived from them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]