scholarly journals Researching Urban Law

2020 ◽  
Vol 21 (7) ◽  
pp. 1446-1463
Author(s):  
Antonia Layard
Keyword(s):  
Urban Policy ◽  
Urban Life ◽  
Shared Task ◽  
Legal Research ◽  
Scholarly Research ◽  
Legal Entity ◽  
Urban Quality ◽  
The Right ◽  
The City ◽  
Level Of Analysis

AbstractThis Article considers the development of urban law. It suggests that urban law is socio-legal in its exploration of law’s role in the production of the city and urban life, enabling the study of the city as a distinctive legal entity. Addressing the question “why urban law?,” this Article considers similar debates in geography and urban policy before developing three arguments for studying urban law: (i) urbanism is a vibrant field of scholarly research; (ii) socio-legal research can take an explicitly normative focus in pursuit of improving urban quality; and (iii) at a city scale we can investigate governance concepts of territory, sovereignty and jurisdiction. One of the difficulties with urban law is finding the right level of analysis, covering sufficient legal and empirical detail whilst also making the city legible at an urban scale. Although this tension produces imperfect compromises, accepting the limitations means that we can begin the shared task of developing an intellectual infrastructure, a grammar, for the study of urban law.

scholarly journals The End of the Right to the City: A Radical-Cooperative View

2021 ◽  
pp. 107808742110578
Author(s):  
Caleb Althorpe ◽  
Martin Horak
Keyword(s):  
Original Writing ◽  
Urban Politics ◽  
Urban Society ◽  
Social Needs ◽  
Urban Life ◽  
Right To The City ◽  
Social Difference ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Right ◽  
The City

Is the Right to the City (RTTC) still a useful framework for a transformative urban politics? Given recent scholarly criticism of its real-world applications and appropriations, in this paper, we argue that the transformative promise in the RTTC lies beyond its role as a framework for oppositional struggle, and in its normative ends. Building upon Henri Lefebvre's original writing on the subject, we develop a “radical-cooperative” conception of the RTTC. Such a view, which is grounded in the lived experiences of the current city, envisions an urban society in which inhabitants can pursue their material and social needs through self-governed cooperation across social difference. Growing and diversifying spaces and sectors of urban life that are decoupled from global capitalism are, we argue, necessary to create space for this inclusionary politics. While grassroots action is essential to this process, so is multi-scalar support from the state.

Gentrification, Displacement, and the Right to the City

2019 ◽  
pp. 168-194
Author(s):  
Jan Lin
Keyword(s):  
Los Angeles ◽  
Urban Policy ◽  
Private Investment ◽  
Right To The City ◽  
Transit Oriented Development ◽  
Family Networks ◽  
Social Violence ◽  
Accumulation By Dispossession ◽  
The Right ◽  
The City

Examines the impacts of the sharpening gentrification process in Northeast Los Angeles and its socioeconomic and racial overtones as immigrant working class Latino/a families are increasingly threatened by displacement through rent increases, evictions, and socially traumatic uprooting of multi-family networks. Gentrification is tied to neoliberal local state efforts in Los Angeles to incentivize private investment through urban policy strategies like transit-oriented development, transit villages and small lot housing development. I argue the creative frontier of urban restructuring in Northeast LA also generates social violence expressing capitalism’s tendency to foster “accumulation by dispossession” that has been countered by neighborhood “right to the city” movements. I examine the rise of the urban social movements like Friends of Highland Park and Northeast LA Alliance that advocate for the rights of those threatened by housing displacement and eviction, address community and environmental impacts of new high-density housing projects, and campaign for more socially just housing and urban planning policies in Los Angeles. There is also examination of the plight of the homeless and rehabilitating gang members

Spatial Agency, Territory, and the Right to the City

2021 ◽  
pp. 257-286
Author(s):  
Quill R Kukla
Keyword(s):  
Public Spaces ◽  
Urban Life ◽  
Urban Spaces ◽  
Right To The City ◽  
Henri Lefebvre ◽  
Complex Relationships ◽  
The Right ◽  
The City

This chapter argues that inclusion in a city or neighborhood requires more than the right to physically reside in it; it requires what Henri LeFebvre, Don Mitchell, and others have called the “right to the city.” The right to the city is not just a formal right to be inside a city without being thrown out; it should be conceived, according to this chapter, as a right to inhabit the city. This requires that we have voice and authority within a city; that we be able to participate in tinkering with it and remaking it; and that we belong in it rather than just perching in it. The chapter explores the complex relationships between public spaces, inclusive spaces, and the right to the city. It examines what sorts of spaces city dwellers need in order to have a flourishing urban life and exercise their spatial agency. It explores some of the barriers that different kinds of bodies face to being included in urban spaces and speculates about what it would take to build a more just and inclusive city.

The Urban Environment

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Barbara A. Hanawalt
Keyword(s):  
Urban Environment ◽  
Crucial Role ◽  
Urban Life ◽  
The Other ◽  
Leadership Positions ◽  
Social Divisions ◽  
The Right ◽  
Physical Features ◽  
Ceremonial Life ◽  
The City

London’s civic world included the Thames and the city walls, the main market (Cheapside), the Guildhall, major churches, wards, and parishes, the physical features that had a role in the city’s ceremonial life. Social divisions played a crucial role in urban life. To be “free of the city” (citizens or freemen) was a franchise limited to those who completed apprenticeships or bought the right. The number of freemen was a small fraction of the population, and among them, the members of the elite who governed was even smaller. London’s society was hierarchical at every level, with elites taking leadership positions in government and in the gilds. Londoners were loyal and curious about their history. They kept books with stories of its creation and major events and documents. The proximity of the Tower on one side and Westminster on the other were influential in London’s relationship with the crown.

scholarly journals Justice and the Spatial Imagination

10.1068/a3467 ◽  
2001 ◽  
Vol 33 (10) ◽  
pp. 1785-1805 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mustafa Dikeç
Keyword(s):  
Urban Policy ◽  
Right To The City ◽  
Theoretical Underpinning ◽  
Moral Ground ◽  
Spatial Justice ◽  
Dialectical Relationship ◽  
The Right ◽  
Political Solidarity ◽  
Spatial Imagination ◽  
The City

I attempt in this paper to conceptualize a notion of spatial justice in order to point to the dialectical relationship between (in)justice and spatiality, and to the role that spatialization plays in the production and reproduction of domination and repression. I argue that the city provides a productive ground for the formation of a spatially informed ethics of political solidarity against domination and repression. A ‘triad’ is articulated to inform such politics, which brings together three notions: the spatial dialectics of injustice, the right to the city, and the right to difference. The notion of spatial justice is employed as a theoretical underpinning to avoid abusive interpretations of Lefebvrian rights in a liberal framework of individual rights. The case of French urban policy is used for illustrative purposes. Finally, the notion of égaliberté is introduced as a moral ground on which the triad may be defended.

scholarly journals RELECTURA DE DOS CIUDADES DESDE LOS CONCEPTOS DE LEFEBVRE

2020 ◽  
pp. 213-229
Author(s):  
Karina Chérrez-Rodas
Keyword(s):  
Social Control ◽  
Public Space ◽  
Latin American ◽  
Urban Space ◽  
Urban Life ◽  
Right To The City ◽  
Control Right ◽  
The Government ◽  
The Right ◽  
The City

El siguiente escrito es una revisión bibliográfica que se desarrolla en función de tres conceptos claves de Lefebvre: El Derecho a la Ciudad, El Control Social y el Espacio Urbano; concebidos en el marco de sus líneas de investigación y orientación marxista. La investigación pretende emplear apreciaciones del autor en mención, enmarcadas en el acontecer de la ciudad en la actualidad, y trasladar a la relectura de problemáticas puntuales en dos ciudades latinoamericanas: Cuenca-Ecuador y Córdoba-Argentina. A partir del Derecho a la Ciudad definido por Lefebvre; se realiza una crítica, al trazado de la nueva área de planificación urbanística en Cuenca, basado en principios funcionalistas, que ha jerarquizado la circulación vehicular, en detrimento del uso peatonal del espacio público. En la misma línea de la crítica de la modernidad, el control social se manifiesta en un sector de la ciudad de Córdoba, el predio de la Casa de Gobierno. Analizar problemáticas en contextos similares, pero a la vez con diferentes escalas de ciudad, permiten validar las tesis y reflexiones de Lefebvre en su época para la planificación de ciudades contemporáneas, cuyos modelos de desarrollo han tenido como consecuencia deficiencias en la vida urbana. Palabras clave: Ciudades, control social, Derecho a la ciudad, espacio urbano, vida urbana. AbstractThe following piece of writing is a bibliographic review that was developed from three key concepts of Lefebvre: Right to the City, Social Control and Urban Space. It was conceived within the framework of his lines of research and Marxist orientation. The research intends to use the author's appreciations in mention, framed in the events of the city at present, and to transfer to the re-reading of specific problems in two Latin American cities: Cuenca-Ecuador and Córdoba-Argentina. Based on the right to the city defined by Lefebvre, a critique was made of the new urban planning area in Cuenca, based on functionalist principles, which has hierarchized vehicle circulation to the detriment of the pedestrian use of public space. Under the same line of the criticism of modernity, social control was manifested in a sector of the city of Córdoba, the Government House site. Problems in similar contexts were analyzed, but at the same time with different city scales. It allowed us to validate Lefebvre's thesis and reflections in his time for the planning of contemporary cities, whose development models have resulted in deficiencies in urban life. Keywords: Cities, social control, Right to the city, urban space, urban life.

scholarly journals The urban public sector as commons

Focaal ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 2013 (66) ◽  
pp. 125-127
Author(s):  
Jane Collins
Keyword(s):  
Public Sector ◽  
Everyday Life ◽  
Common Property ◽  
Urban Life ◽  
Right To The City ◽  
Urban Settings ◽  
Collective Property ◽  
The Right ◽  
Urban Commons ◽  
The City

Susser and Tonnelat’s article on the three urban commons is both visionary and heartening. Its counterpastoral polemic glorifies urban modes of sociality and the forms of common property fostered by urban life. The authors find in cities communities of experience that cross class lines and create inadvertent coalitions around shared problems. They argue that specific components of what has been called “the right to the city” need to be understood as “commons”—collective property that is neither fully public nor private but shared by individuals as they go about everyday life in urban settings.

scholarly journals Preserving the (right kind of) city: The urban politics of the middle classes in Belo Horizonte, Brazil

Urban Studies ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 57 (10) ◽  
pp. 2163-2180
Author(s):  
Mara Nogueira
Keyword(s):  
Middle Class ◽  
Urban Space ◽  
Urban Politics ◽  
Capital Accumulation ◽  
Urban Poor ◽  
Urban Policy ◽  
Continuous Process ◽  
Belo Horizonte ◽  
The Right ◽  
The City

Since re-democratisation, Brazil has experienced a slow but continuous process of urban reform, with the introduction of legal and institutional developments that favour participatory democracy in urban policy. Legal innovations such as the City Statute have been celebrated for expanding the ‘right to the city’ to marginalised populations. While most studies examine the struggles of the urban poor, I focus on middle-class citizens, showing how such legal developments have unevenly affected the ways in which different social groups are able to impact the production of urban space. The two cases explored in this study concern residents’ struggles to preserve their middle-class neighbourhoods against change triggered by projects related to the hosting of the 2014 World Cup in Belo Horizonte, Brazil. The first looks at the Musas Street residents’ fight against the construction of a luxury hotel in their neighbourhood, while the second examines the Pampulha residents’ struggle against the presence of street vendors and football fans in their streets. My findings show that through the articulation of legal discourses, middle-class claims on the need for preserving the environment and the city’s cultural heritage are legitimised by the actions of the local state. The article thus looks beyond neoliberalism, showing that socio-spatial segregation and inequality should not be regarded solely as the product of state–capital alliances for engendering capital accumulation through spatial restructuring, but also as the result of the uneven capacities of those living in the city to access the state resources and legitimise certain forms of inhabitance of urban space.

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