Appropriating the Concept of the Right to the City: Politics, Politicians, and Collective Actors in Mexico City☆

This article investigates the conceptual and political history of the right to the city in Mexico City from the late 1980s to the present, focusing especially on the Mexico City Charter for the Right to the City completed and endorsed by leading political figures in 2010. By grounding this investigation in the dialectical methods of Henri Lefebvre, the article builds on roughly 12 months of ethnographic and archival fieldwork in Mexico City to argue that all such instantiations of the right to the city are bound to commit a certain violence against the idea. What the Mexico City case also suggests, however, is that such a dialectical concept is also always radically open to revivification and reimagining, as exemplified by the return of the right to the city in Mexico City’s 2017 constitution. Analysing the right to the city and its attendant politics and history from this vantage allows two crucial and underappreciated insights to emerge from this case: that the right to the city can be and sometimes is pursued under alternative auspices, and that any apparent stasis, even political death, is best considered temporary and mutable.

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Derecho a la ciudad, derechos en la ciudad /// Right to the City, Rights in the City

Estudios Demográficos y Urbanos ◽

10.24201/edu.v30i3.1494 ◽

2015 ◽

Vol 30 (3) ◽

pp. 567

Author(s):

Vicente Ugalde

Keyword(s):

Mexico City ◽

Legal System ◽

Right To The City ◽

The Status ◽

The Right ◽

The City

Este artículo examina la noción “derecho a la ciudad” en el contexto de la Ciudad de México. Para ello, el autor analiza las condiciones jurídicas actuales para el disfrute y exigibilidad de ese derecho a través de otros derechos relacionados con él, así como mediante su eventual inscripción en el régimen jurídico. En el análisis de la aprehensión jurídica y la justiciabilidad del derecho a la ciudad, el artículo presta especial atención a la condición de “ciudadanía”, y moviliza referentes empíricos relacionados con conflictos a propósito de “derechos en la ciudad”. Con este propósito presta especial interés al conflicto relacionado con la construcción de la Supervía Poniente en la Ciudad de México. Se trata de esclarecer si la noción de derecho a la ciudad es susceptible de traducirse en medios concretos para el disfrute de la urbe o si, por el contrario, es tan sólo una expresión, movilizadora pero desprovista de contenido jurídico. AbstractThis article examines the notion of “right to the city” in the context of Mexico City. To this end, the author analyzes the current legal conditions for the enjoyment and enforcement of that right through other rights related to it, and their possible inclusion in the legal system. In the analysis of legal apprehension and the justiciability of the right to the city, the article pays special attention to the status of “citizenship,” using empirical referents related to conflicts about “rights in the city”. For this purpose, special attention is paid to the conflict over the construction of the Western Superhighway in Mexico City. The paper seeks to clarify whether the concept of right to the city can be translated into concrete ways to enjoy the city, or whether, by contrast, it is merely an expression that mobilizes people yet is devoid of legal content.

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The right to the city in Mexico City: the Charter

Global Urban Justice ◽

10.1017/cbo9781316544792.013 ◽

2016 ◽

pp. 220-236

Author(s):

Ana María Sánchez Rodríguez

Keyword(s):

Mexico City ◽

Right To The City ◽

The Right ◽

The City

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Tenkuä: Designing Futures for Broken Cities

Temes de Disseny ◽

10.46467/tdd36.2020.178-191 ◽

2020 ◽

pp. 178-191

Author(s):

Karla Paniagua ◽

Paulina Cornejo

Keyword(s):

Mexico City ◽

Learning Experience ◽

Education Institution ◽

Right To The City ◽

Community Life ◽

Design Strategies ◽

The Right ◽

The Relationship ◽

The City ◽

Initial Results

This work presents the initial results from two years of Tenkuä, a participatory futures workshop created by CENTRO, a higher education institution in Mexico City specialised in creativity. This experience aims to help participants to have a better understanding of the contexts and environments where they live and to design strategies that can contribute to improving community life. The methodology of the workshop combines a foresight framework with the Right to the City approach. The preliminary results refer to the learning experience as a product of design itself and how, during the process of participatory futures, the relationship between the institution and its neighbours was transformed into an experience of participatory presents.

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The Right to the City and the Urban Environment: Re-Imagining Section 24 of the 1996 Constitution

Southern African Public Law ◽

10.25159/2522-6800/3624 ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 29 (1) ◽

pp. 175-193

Author(s):

Marius Pieterse

Keyword(s):

Urban Environment ◽

Right To The City ◽

The Right ◽

The City

Article

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A utopia do direito à cidade: Possibilidades de superação da dicotomia favela-bairro no Rio de Janeiro

GEOgraphia ◽

10.22409/geographia2005.714.a13491 ◽

2010 ◽

Vol 7 (14) ◽

Author(s):

Márcio Piñon de Oliveira

Keyword(s):

Rio De Janeiro ◽

The Other ◽

Right To The City ◽

Other Hand ◽

The Right ◽

The City

A utopia do direito à cidade, no caso específico do Rio de Janeiro, começa, obrigatoriamente, pela superação da visão dicotômica favela-cidade. Para isso, é preciso que os moradores da favela possam sentir-se tão cidadãos quanto os que têm moradias fora das favelas. A utopia do direito à cidade tem de levar a favela a própria utopia da cidade. Uma cidade que não se fragmente em oposições asfalto-favela, norte-sul, praia-subúrbio e onde todos tenham direito ao(s) seu(s) centro(s). Oposições que expressam muito mais do que diferenças de localização e que se apresentam recheadas de segregação, estereótipos e ideologias. Por outro lado, o direito a cidade, como possibilidade histórica, não pode ser pensado exclusivamente a partir da favela. Mas as populações que aí habitam guardam uma contribuição inestimável para a construção prática desse direito. Isso porque, das experiências vividas, emergem aprendizados e frutificam esperanças e soluções. Para que a favela seja pólo de um desejo que impulsione a busca do direito a cidade, é necessário que ela se pense como parte da história da própria cidade e sua transformação em metrópole.Abstract The right to the city's utopy specifically in Rio de Janeiro, begins by surpassing the dichotomy approach between favela and the city. For this purpose, it is necessary, for the favela dwellers, the feeling of citizens as well as those with home outside the favelas. The right to the city's utopy must bring to the favela the utopy to the city in itself- a non-fragmented city in terms of oppositions like "asphalt"-favela, north-south, beach-suburb and where everybody has right to their center(s). These oppositions express much more the differences of location and present themselves full of segregation, stereotypes and ideologies. On the other hand, the right to the city, as historical possibility, can not be thought just from the favela. People that live there have a contribution for a practical construction of this right.

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