Right to the city

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Advertising poster for a demonstration on the subject of "Right to the City"

The right to the city is a claim that was first raised in 1968 by the French sociologist and philosopher Henri Lefebvre in his book of the same name, Le droit à la ville .

Henri Lefebvre and the right to the city

In his book Le droit à la ville , Lefebvre outlined the right to the city as the right to a transformed, renewed urban life. In doing so, he was reacting to the social problems that arose as a result of the rapid urbanization of the post-war period, particularly as a result of the construction of mass housing. Lefebvre lamented the numerous quality losses that went hand in hand with the urbanization process, in that the former city as a place of creative creation, as an oeuvre, is increasingly subject to exchange value and the logic of industrial exploitation, and for its residents to end up being forced to “end up in boxes and cages or to include 'living machines' ”. At the same time, he also identified an enormous positive potential in urbanization that could lead to the development of an emancipated urban society in the context of an urban revolution. The right to the city thus stands for a right for society as a whole to these urban qualities created in the urbanization process, which for Lefebvre lie in encounters, exchanges, festivals and in a collectively designed and used urban space.

Urban researchers Dirk Gebhardt and Andrej Holm summarize this multi-faceted idea as a “right to centrality, as access to places of social wealth, urban infrastructure and knowledge; and the right to difference, which stands for a city as a place of meeting, of recognizing oneself and of acknowledging and debating [...] It is not limited to the concrete use of urban spaces, but also includes access to political and strategic debates on future development paths. The right to the city is based on the utopian promises of the urban and claims a right to the creative surplus of the urban ”.

Many of the fragmentary ideas that Lefebvre initially presented in Le droit à la ville , he developed further in his subsequent publications on the subject of cities and space, for example in Du rural à l'urbain (1970), La révolution urbaine (1970), La pensée marxiste à la ville (1972), Espace et politique (1972) and La production de l'espace (1974).

Current right to city concepts

Since the turn of the millennium, Lefebvre's demand has been increasingly taken up from very different sides. In numerous cities, social protest movements were formed under the motto right to the city. B. in Istanbul, New Orleans, Madrid or Hamburg. The Right to the City Alliance (RTTC) has been active in the USA since 2007 , a nationwide association that opposes gentrification processes . In the German-speaking area, the Hamburg Network Right to City (RaS) has achieved the largest mobilization to date and has thus become a role model for other cities. In addition, the right to the city has also become the subject of academic conferences and debates. In particular, representatives of critical urban research such as David Harvey , Peter Marcuse or Margit Mayer used Lefebvre's approach as the basis for a radical criticism of society and the system. In response to the urban problems of the global south, such as slum formation with the corresponding precarious housing, living and legal conditions, non-governmental organizations have also integrated Lefebvre's demand into their work. For example, the Habitat International Coalition (HIC), an association of numerous NGOs anchored in social movements, has drawn up a world charter for the right to the city. Such efforts were ultimately also supported by the UN organizations UN-HABITAT and UNESCO , which for their part postulate a right to the city.

However, these various references to the right to the city differ considerably and were used for their e.g. Sometimes the considerable distance to Lefebvre's intention was also repeatedly criticized. For example, the Brazilian professor of human geography Marcelo Lopes de Souza criticized the fact that the popularity of the right to the city had led to a trivialization and corruption of the original approach.

expenditure

See also

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Henri Lefebvre: Le droit à la ville . Anthropos, Paris 2009, p. 108
  2. ^ Henri Lefebvre: The revolution of the cities . Syndicate, Frankfurt a. M. 1972, p. 89
  3. ^ Henri Lefebvre: Le droit à la ville . Anthropos, Paris 2009, p. 133 f.
  4. ^ Andrej Holm, Dirk Gebhardt: Initiatives for a right to the city. Theory and Practice of Urban Appropriation . VSA Verlag, Hamburg 2011, p. 8
  5. ↑ Andrej Holm: The right to the city . Sheets for German and International Politics 8/2011, p. 89
  6. ↑ Natascha Geier, Lennart Herberhold: Who does the city belong to? (No longer available online.) In: Kulturjournal. NDR, archived from the original on March 7, 2014 ; accessed on January 13, 2014 .
  7. ^ David Harvey: The Right to the City. New Left Review 53/2008, pp. 23-40 (PDF; 146 kB)
  8. ↑ Ana Sugranyes, Charlotte Mathivet: Cities for All. Proposals and Experiences towards the Right to the City . HIC, Santiago 2010, p. 22 ( Memento of the original from September 26, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.hic-net.org
  9. ↑ UNESCO / UN-HABITAT: Urban Policies and the Right to the City . Paris 2009 (PDF; 3.4 MB)
  10. ↑ Marcelo Lopes de Souza: Which Right to which City? Interface Vol. 2 (1), p. 315 ( Memento of the original from January 19, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF; 1.7 MB) @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / interfacejournal.nuim.ie

Web links