right to the city

is as intrinsic to the human condition as is labor (a-la marx) or simply breathing. Space and the control of it can be taken away, but the right to it is always present.

Space is the creative product of the everyday people whose lives are mirrored in it. Just because one cannot overtly see the place-shaping activities in space does not mean that they are not there. For Lefebvre, the right to the city is as intrinsic to the human condition as is labor (a-la Marx) or simply breathing. Space and the control of it can be taken away, but the right to it is always present.

is far more than the individual liberty to access urban resources: It is a right to change ourselves by changing the city.

The right to the city is far more than the individual liberty to access urban resources: it is a right to change ourselves by changing the city. It is, moreover, a common rather than an individual right since this transformation inevitably depends upon the exercise of a collective power to reshape the processes of urbanization. The freedom to make and remake our cities and ourselves is, I want to argue, one of the most precious yet most neglected of our human rights. David Harvey

right to the city, n.All

right to the city