The vortex of rights : ‘right to the city’ at a crossroads
International organization ; Marxism ; Right to the city ; Urban policy ; Urban social movement ; Urbanism
The right to the city concept has recently attracted a great deal of attention from radical theorists and grassroots activists of urban justice, who have embraced the notion as a means to analyze and challenge neoliberal urbanism. The article
analyzes such projects by reframing the right to the city concept to foreground its roots in Marxian labor theory of value. It argues that Lefebvre's formulation of the right to the city is invaluable for analyzing and delineating contradictory urban
politics that are pulled into the vortex of the right to the city. The article concludes with a theoretical proposition that aims to open up space for further critical debate on the right to the city.
The right to the city and critical reflections on China's property rights activism
Activism ; China ; Guangdong ; Guangzhou ; Labour migration ; Property right ; Right to the city ; Social geography ; Urban development ; Urban policy
This paper refers to the perspective of the “right to the city” to examine whose rights count in China's urban development contexts and proposes a cross-class alliance that engages both migrants and local citizens. The alliance itself will have
substantial political implications, overcoming the limited level of rights awareness that mainly rests on distributional justice in China. The discussions are supported by an analysis of empirical data from the author's field research in Guangzhou, which
Citizenship ; Decision making process ; Local policy ; Poverty ; Public space ; Right to the city ; Social exclusion ; Urban policy ; Urban social movement ; Urban society
Drawing on the work of Henri Lefebvre the vision of the right to the city has inspired a global social movement, legislative reform in Latin America and international debates at World Urban Forum 5 in Rio de Janeiro. The article critically examines
the right to the city through the lens of contributions to the UN-HABITAT e-debate in November-December 2009, which gave voice to those who might otherwise not be heard. Drawing on these contributions, it argues for a new conceptualization of citizenship
, and for a redefinition of the role of the local state and social actors in implementing the rights-based agenda that the right to the city entails.
Cities within the city : do-it-yourself urbanism and the right to the city
Activism ; Appropriation of land ; Australia ; Citizenship ; Creativity ; Local policy ; Right to the city ; Sydney ; Urban area ; Urban policy ; Urbanism
of the ‘right to the city’. After critically assessing that concept, it argues that in order for do-it-yourself urbanist practices to generate a wider politics of the city through the appropriation of urban space, they also need to assert new forms of authority
The article asks to what extent such practices constitute a new form of urban politics that might give birth to a more just and democratic city. In answering this question, it considers these so-called ‘do-it-yourself urbanisms’ from the perspective
in the city based on the equality of urban inhabitants. This claim is illustrated through an analysis of the do-it-yourself practices of Sydney-based activist collective BUGA UP and the New York and Madrid Street Advertising Takeovers.
Gender and politics of scale : the Christian Right, sex education, and community in Vista, California, 1990-1994
Gender and the City
Vista has been the site of a heated struggle over who would control public education - the Christian Right or so-called secular humanists. The Christian Right gained control of the school board from 1992 to 1994 by stressing the moral authority
of local, place-based communities. Nevertheless, the Christian Right is a community of interest (about 15% of all Americans) using identity politics to force their values on others. - (SLD)
En dépit de son statut de capitale de la Californie, Sacramento se complait à donner d'elle-même une image floue. Le sobriquet de River City s'impose en premier pour évoquer une ville ancrée dans un site fluvial, source d'images plus nettes. - (DWG)
China ; Guangdong ; Guangzhou ; Housing policy ; Neo liberalism ; Right to the city ; Shenzhen ; Social class ; Social control ; Social geography ; Social system ; Urban development ; Urban policy
Les AA. analysent les disparités en matière droits à la ville en Chine au travers des articles suivants :1-Two waves of gentrification and emerging rights issues in Guangzhou ; 2-China asymmetrical integration: public finance deprivation in China’s
Introduction : real rights to the city—cases of property rights changes towards equity in Eastern Asia : Property rights in transition
Property rights in transition
Acquiring property ; China ; Japan ; Land ; Land policy ; Land reform ; Land tenure ; Property right ; Role of the State ; Town ; Urban policy ; Vietnam
Eco-urbanism and the eco-city, or, denying the right to the city?
China ; Ecology ; Land rights ; Land use ; Political ecology ; Project ; Right to the city ; Settlement ; Sustainable development ; Urbanism
This paper analyses the construction of eco-cities as technological fixes to concerns over climate change, Peak Oil, and other scenarios in the transition towards “green capitalism”. First, it highlights the inequalities which mean that eco-cities
will not benefit those who will be most impacted by climate change: the citizens of the world's least wealthy states. Second, it investigates the foun-dation of eco-city projects on notions of crisis and scarcity. Third, it interrogates the mechanisms through which
new eco-cities are built, including the land market, reclamation, dispossession and “green grabbing”. Lastly, a sustained focus is needed on the multiplication of workers’ geographies in and around these “emerald cities”, especially the ordinary urban
Legal geographies—the right to spaces for social dancing in New York City : a question of urban rights
Activism ; Gentrification ; Legislation ; Leisure ; Neighbourhood ; New York City ; New York State ; Right to the city ; United States of America ; Urban area ; Urban society
Activisme ; Droit à la ville ; Embourgeoisement ; Espace urbain ; Etats-Unis ; Loisir ; Législation ; New York City ; New York State ; Quartier ; Société urbaine
Special issue : European cities : growth and decline
Berlin ; Demographic change ; Germany ; Large city;Metropolis ; Political reform ; Reunification ; Urban construction ; Urban development ; Urban network ; Urban planning ; Urban population ; Urban system
In the first part of the paper the developments of the two halves of the city between 1945 and 1989 are described under the topics of political development and planning, population, housing and economic development. The second part describes
the problems of the creation of the German urban system at 1990/1991 right after unification, in the fields of planning and policy, finance, population and economy. The last part gives some sceptical spotlights on future developments in the aforementioned
The spatial dimension of negotiated power relations and social justice in the redevelopment of villages-in-the-city in China
China ; Participation ; Power ; Project ; Right to the city ; Social geography ; Social justice ; Urban development ; Urban policy ; Urban renewal ; Village
connections which different actors draw from space, be it place or shifting positions. In the context of China’s villages-in-the-city redevelopment, this idea suggests that the dispossessed are not entirely powerless, although their formal rights
Building a city for “The People” : the politics of alliance-building in the Sydney Green Ban Movement
Activism ; Australia ; New South Wales ; Right to the city ; Social geography ; Sydney ; Urban development ; Urban policy ; Urban social movement
This article analyses the politics of alliance-building in the Sydney Green Ban Movement. It examines the rights and the authority that was invested in “the people” by green ban activists, and traces the work of political subjectification through
which “the people” was constructed. In acting as/for “the people”, green ban activists produced a political subject able to challenge the claims of elected politicians, bureaucrats and developers to represent the interests of the city. It concludes