Right to (Beyond) the City

“The right to the city cannot be conceived of as a simple visiting right or as a return to traditional cities. It can only be formulated as a transformed and renewed right to urban life.”

-Lefebvre, Right to the City

Although I have been steeped in our country’s culture of capitalism, I disagree with Harvey’s notion of an inalienable right to the city. I simply don’t think that everyone has an intrinsic entitlement to reside in a space that they cannot afford. Case in point: the 2008 crisis. Harvey’s definition of the city seems to be overly myopic. Although he never explicitly defines the city, his implied version deals with a concentration of high-rise buildings. I resonate more with Lefebvre’s notion and scope of a city as urban life, and share his perspective in a person’s right to that life. In this scale, a right to urban life implies the inalienable right to life regardless of place – the right to congregation and density as separate from the high-rise boundaries defining a traditional city.

Urban Life | Chicago, IL | Breaking the High-Rise Boundaries

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