The city of law

2013 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 192-212
Author(s):  
Kirsten Campbell
Keyword(s):  
Urban Life ◽  
Right To The City ◽  
Spatial Turn ◽  
Spatial Justice ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Creation ◽  
Legal Construction ◽  
The Right ◽  
The City

AbstractThere is now a well-established ‘spatial turn in law’. However, it remains oriented towards notions of space rather than law. How, then, to capture both the spatiality of law and the legality of space? This article draws on Bruno Latour's concept of the legal construction of the ‘social’ to explore the assemblage of the city of law. It shows how law functions as a particular form of association in urban life by tracing two key forms of urban legal association in London, the city of law. The first form is ‘legal ordering’. This seeks to order urban life through domination, and includes citadel law, police law and laws of exception. The second is ‘legal consociations’, which build new forms of urban life, such as urban rights, the rights of the city and the right to the city. Finally, the article explores the creation of a spatial justice that can build more just legal associations.

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.

scholarly journals Lebanon Cities’ Public Spaces

2018 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 119-152 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maryam Nazzal ◽  
Samer Chinder
Keyword(s):  
Green Space ◽  
Public Spaces ◽  
World Health ◽  
Right To The City ◽  
Social Connections ◽  
Land Prices ◽  
The Social ◽  
Health Organization ◽  
The Right ◽  
The City

In Lebanon, the social connections are undeniable and crucial. However, meeting places remain private such as houses, restaurants, malls, and beach resorts. This is mainly due to the shortage of public spaces in Lebanon resulting from lack of planning, regulations and awareness around the right to the city and the importance of public spaces. In main cities where land prices are so expensive, common practice has prioritized the use of land in real estate development, thus trumping other uses such as public and communal spaces.In the late 1990s, Lebanon saw the emergence of malls, which have arguably acted as alternatives to public spaces. Malls, with their wealth of food courts, restaurants, cinemas, and play areas, have become the new downtown for a portion of the Lebanese population. They are also considered safe, which is another important factor.In 2015, the percentage of green spaces in Lebanon has decreased to less than 13%. While the World Health Organization (WHO) recommends a minimum of 9m2 of green space per capita (UN-HABITAT, 2016), Beirut has only 0.8m2.

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.

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.

Henri Lefebvre

Urban Studies ◽  
2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andy Zieleniec
Keyword(s):  
Everyday Life ◽  
Right To The City ◽  
Social Production ◽  
Henri Lefebvre ◽  
Production Of Space ◽  
The Social ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
The Right ◽  
The University ◽  
The City

Henri Lefebvre is now established as one of the most important social theorists of the 20th century. Over a long life (b. 1901–d. 1991) he wrote and published prodigiously more than sixty books and several hundred articles on a range of issues and themes. His legacy and lasting impact not only includes being the most influential and seminal theorist on the reprioritization of space in social and critical analysis but also recognition for his contribution to the analysis of everyday life, modernity, the Right to the City, and the urban. He continues to influence and inspire research across a number of disciplines and fields; these include rural and regional studies, sociology, geography, politics, philosophy, and urban studies. Lefebvre’s commitment Marxism; his nondogmatic and humanist approach to the definition, discussion, extension, and application of key concepts; and his integration of those concepts into his various analyses of the rural and the city, of the state, of space and politics, and of modernity and everyday life led him to a conflicted relationship and at times marginalization within the structuralist-influenced French Academy and the Communist Party of France in which he was a member for thirty years. His anti-Stalinist stance and nonconformist opposition to the structural determinism prevalent within the party led to his expulsion, but throughout the 1960s, as professor of sociology at the University of Strasbourg and latterly at the new university at Nanterre, he became one of the most respected teachers and intellectuals inspiring and influencing the May 1968 student revolt. Lefebvre’s work after that, still influenced and committed to Marxist dialectics and critique, increasingly focused on the urban, the social production of space, everyday life, modernity, and the survival of capitalism. Of these his introduction of the concept of the right to the city and the social production of space have been immensely influential for a range of urban scholars and theorists and his work as a whole is being increasingly adopted, adapted, and extended by a variety of researchers of the city in a range of disciplines. The works selected below reflect Lefebvre’s long career and extensive corpus of work. However, only those books and articles that have been translated into English are included here. They represent his exegesis of Marxism and its application to a range of themes that were applied or are important for urban analysis. The secondary literature cited is organized thematically and while not comprehensive provides an overview of the expanding literature on, about, and applying Lefebvrian analysis.

CRISE, RENTISMO E OS LIMITES PARA O DIREITO À CIDADE HOJE NO BRASIL

GEOgraphia ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 20 (42) ◽  
pp. 63
Author(s):  
Pedro Henrique de Mendonça Resende
Keyword(s):  
Social Reproduction ◽  
Urban Land ◽  
Right To The City ◽  
Land Conflict ◽  
Brazilian Society ◽  
The Social ◽  
Belo Horizonte ◽  
The Right ◽  
Social Wealth ◽  
The City

Resumo: As três primeiras partes deste artigo apresentam três elementos que perpassam a sociedade brasileira contemporânea: os limites irreversíveis alcançados pela reprodução social do capital, as formas rentistas de acumulação capitalista da riqueza social e os obstáculos à realização do direito à cidade. Na quarta parte deste artigo os três elementos anteriormente apresentados são brevemente articulados por meio de apontamentos acerca de fenômenos e processos relacionados aos conflitos presentes na região das ocupações da Izidora, localizada na periferia norte da metrópole de Belo Horizonte.Palavras-chave: Crise de reprodução do capital. Rentismo. Direito à cidade. Conflito fundiário urbano. Ocupações da Izidora (Belo Horizonte/MG). CRISIS, RENTISM AND THE LIMITS TO THE RIGHT TO THE CITY TODAY IN BRAZILAbstract: The first three parts of this article present three elements that permeate contemporary Brazilian society: the irreversible limits currently achieved by the social reproduction of capital; the rentier forms of accumulation of capitalist social wealth; and the obstacles to the realization of the right to the city. In the fourth part of this article the three elements previously presented are briefly articulated by means of notes about phenomena and processes related to the conflicts in the region of occupations Izidora, located on the northern periphery of the metropolis of Belo Horizonte.Keywords: Crisis of capital reproduction. Rentierism. The right to the city. Urban land conflict. Region of occupations Izidora (Belo Horizonte/MG). CRISE, RENTISME ET LES LIMITES DU DROIT À LA VILLE AUJOURD’HUI AU BRÉSILRésumé: Les trois premières parties de cet article présentent trois éléments qui imprègnent la société brésilienne contemporaine: les limites irréversibles actuellement atteintes par la reproduction sociale du capital; les formes rentières de l’accumulation de la richesse sociale capitaliste; et les obstacles à la réalisation du droit à la ville. Dans la quatrième partie de cet article, les trois éléments précédemment présentés sont brièvement articulés à travers des notes sur les phénomènes et les processus liés aux conflits dans la région des occupations Izidora, situé à la périphérie nord de la métropole de Belo Horizonte.Mots-clés: Crise de la reproduction du capital. Rentisme. Le droit à la ville. Conflit foncier urbain. Région d’occupation Izidora (Belo Horizonte/MG). 

Community gardening for integrated urban renewal in Copenhagen: securing or denying minorities’ right to the city?

2019 ◽  
pp. 91-107
Author(s):  
Parama Roy
Keyword(s):  
Public Space ◽  
Ethnic Minorities ◽  
Urban Governance ◽  
Physical Space ◽  
Right To The City ◽  
Urban Context ◽  
Community Gardening ◽  
Spatial Justice ◽  
The Right ◽  
The City

This chapter presents a case study from Copenhagen on a community-based, but state-initiated urban gardening effort to examine what such efforts mean for the minorities’ (the homeless and the ethnic minorities’) right to the city (Purcell, 2002; 2013) especially within the context of a traditionally welfare-driven, but increasingly neoliberalized urban context. David Harvey has described the right to the city as “not merely a right of access to what already exists, but a right to change it after our heart’s desire” (Harvey, 2003). As such, in this chapter the concept of “right to the city” is operationalized as a measure or proxy for social and spatial justice to explore how the state-initiated community gardening effort in the Sundholm District shapes/secures/denies the homeless and the ethnic minorities’ ability to, a) use and just be in the physical space of the garden (a public space) and b) to translate this into access to the political space of urban governance (and governance of the garden space) where they can voice their needs/concerns.

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