1. 1
AS
A
WAY
OF
INTRODUCTION.
THE
«RIGHT
TO
THE
CITY»:
PRACTICES
AND
IMAGINARIES
FOR
RETHINKING
THE
CITY
Introduction
In
recent
years
the
concept
of
the
«right
of
the
city»,
coined
by
Henry
Lefebvre
in
the
upheavals
of
1968,
has
regained
attention
amongst
scholars,
urban
movements,
activists,
NGOs,
and
policy
makers.
This
resurgence
is
connected
with
mounting
concerns
over
neoliberal
restructuring
and
the
progressive
dismantling
of
the
welfare
system.
These
have
increased
the
inequality
in
the
distribution
of
resources,
accrued
the
deterioration
of
the
living
conditions
of
those
at
the
lower
steps
of
the
social
ladder
and
exposed
new
vulnerabilities.
Furthermore,
the
most
recent
crisis,
which
is
the
culmination
of
the
incessant
unfolding
of
global
economic
crises
since
the
early
1970s,
has
brought
forth
new
manifestations
of
discontent
and
exasperated
social
polarizationi.
The
resulting
marginalization
of
segments
of
the
population
on
economic
or
social
bases,
and
the
consolidation
of
«a
society
subservient
to
financial
power
by
politics»ii
further
detract
control
and
political
power
from
the
inhabitants
over
the
future
of
nations
and
cities.
This
paper
would
like
to
put
into
context
and
bring
into
the
current
scientific
debate
the
alternative
practices
and
imaginaries
emerged
at
various
scale
addressing
issues
of
resources
distribution,
equity,
rights,
democracy
and
differences,
which
have
been
collected
for
this
Cahier.
The
aim
is
to
critically
examine
their
claims
and
values
in
order
to
envisage
new
urban
imaginaries
capable
of
better
representing
the
pluralities
of
society,
expanding
the
envisioned
democracy
that
through
centuries
we
have
been
able
of
imagining,
but
not
realizing,
and
responding
to
the
multiple
challenges
and
needs
that
the
contemporary
city
seems
incapable
of
addressing
in
the
present
state.
The
case
studies
presented
in
this
Cahier
also
offer
the
opportunity
to
expand
our
knowledge
about
strategies
and
tools
useful
for
translating
the

2. 2
imaginaries
into
socio-­‐spatial
projects
to
build
better
cities
and
for
checking
our
progresses,
because
as
Gérronez
reminds
us,
a
definite
solution
does
not
exist,
we
are
preceding
by
trail
and
error,
therefore
a
monitoring
dispositive
becomes
fundamentaliii.
The
neoliberal
city
contested
Differences
and
difficulties
characterised
the
analysis
of
the
events
and
processes
that
have
occurred
since
the
shift
towards
neoliberalism.
However,
scholars
agree
that
there
is
plenty
of
evidence
around
the
globe
of
neoliberal
uneven
geographical
development.
They
recognised
that
inequalities
in
urban
areas
are
spreading
worldwide
under
the
effects
of
a
globalised
world
economy,
although
with
different
determinants
in
developing
and
industrialised
countries.
If
vulnerability
and
exclusion
from
the
access
to
basic
goods
and
urban
services
seem
worsening
in
the
cities
in
the
South,
urban
areas
in
the
North
are
exposed
to
new
phenomena
of
poverty,
social-­‐spatial
segregation,
gentrification,
destruction
of
common
heritage
sites
and
popular
quarters,
and
exclusion
of
growing
sectors
of
population
from
the
economic
and
social
opportunities
that
the
city
should
offer.
The
worldwide
resonance
and
catastrophic
consequences
of
the
latest
crises
has
also
contributed
to
further
analyse
this
phase
of
capitalism
and
its
connivances
with
the
urban
transformation
process.
The
beginning
of
the
latest
crises
is
traced
the
so-­‐called
sub-­‐prime
mortgage
and
housing
asset-­‐value
crisis,
which
hit
the
US
in
the
2007,
provoking
despair
among
low
income
and
middle
low
income
householdsiv.
More
generally
the
harmful
effects
of
the
crises
on
human
beings
can
be
epitomised
in
the
loss
of
the
home
by
millions
of
people
around
the
world
due
to
their
insolvency
of
the
mortgage;
increasing
unemployment
and
worsening
of
working
conditions;
augmentation
of
poverty
and
famine,
which
undermine
the
health
and
life
expectancy
of
population;
and
further
cut
to
social
protection
measuresv.
The
globalization
of
markets,
deregulation
of
capital
flows
and
minimisation
of
state
control
over
financial
activities
on
the
one
hand,
and
the
deregulation
of
urban
planning,
the
incorporation
of
to
real
estate
rent
into
the
financial
circuit,
which
increasingly
ties
together
urban
development
and
management
with
market
mechanism
and
economic
powers,
have
had
tremendous
repercussions
on
the
urban
space.
The
unbreakable
bond
structure,
which
emerged
between
financial
gains
and
real
estate
gains
more
generally
created
a
wave
of
urban
development
dictated
by
the
financial
markets
rather
than
the
needs
of
the
population,
with
tremendous
consequences
for
the
urban
structure
and
inhabitants.
In
Italy
for
instance,
it
first
filled
in
the
voids
of
the
already
compact
city
and
then
spilled
over
in
the
sprawl
of
the
metropolitan
cities,
increasing
housing
prices,
land
consumption,
degrading
the
territory,
depressing
the
economy
instead
of
rescuing
it,
and
dissipating
resources
through
the
construction
of
futile
infrastructures
vi.
In
these
transformations
the
city
is
an
essential
pawn
-­‐
an
engine
of
economic
growth
oriented
to
consumerism
–
but
also
a
victim:
the
fragmentation
found
in
the
infinity
of
enclosures,
ghettos,
enclaves
that
characterize
it,
undermines
the
meaning
and
essence
of
the
city
itselfvii.
The
gentrification
of
popular
areas
and
appealing
destroy
traditional
neighbourhoods
and
give
way
to
redevelopment
speculation,
contributing
to
a
process
of
impoverishment
not
any
more
involving
only
marginal
groups.
The
often
conflicting
coexistence
of
populations
with
very
different
patterns
of
living,
lifestyles,
employment
status
and
consumption
habits,
seems
to
damage
the
livability,
particularly
of
the
vulnerable
groups,
-­‐
constantly
subjected
to
an
effort
of
adaption
-­‐instead
of
enriching
the
meaning
of
cities
and
citizenship.

3. 3
Nevertheless,
contradictory
and
conflicting
processes
are
at
work.
First,
being
neoliberalism
a
dialectic
process,
it
destroys
the
Keynesian
artefacts’,
policies,
institutions
and
agreements,
but
in
the
other
hand
it
creates
new
or
co-­‐opted
institutions
and
practices
directed
at
maximizing
entrepreneurial
freedoms
within
an
institutional
framework
characterized
by
private
property
rights,
individual
liberty,
free
markets
and
free
tradeviii.
Second,
the
socio-­‐
spatial
landscape
of
urbanization
under
capitalism
is
more
than
just
the
product
of
the
transforming
power
of
capitalism
and
implies
specific
human
organization
in
a
spatial-­‐
temporary
context
that
involves
all
forces
and
aspects
of
human
lifeix.
The
dominant
discourse
on
the
city,
on
the
one
hand
one
is
hinged
on
entreprenership,
competitiveness,
revitalization,
and
the
construction
of
a
«new»
city
(in
which
the
architecture
of
the
famous
architects,
big
events
and
big
infrastructure
become
powerful
symbolic
tools
and
materials),
on
the
other
hand
produces
an
alarmist
representation
of
the
city.
This
stigmatises
the
urban
riots
and
legitimatise
security
policies,
monitoring,
cleaning
(material
and
otherwise),
and
divisions,
by
banishing
or
transforming
those
who
consider
themselves
the
source
of
fearx.
The
responses
of
this
representation
contemplate
the
spatial
separation,
in
the
form
of
gated
communities,
enclaves
and
other
areas
of
«selective»
social
reproduction
in
which
the
Other
(the
poor,
the
migrants,
etc.)
is
kept
out.
In
the
ghettos
-­‐
places
with
high
concentration
of
discomfort,
where
environmental
conditions
are
on
average
worse
than
the
surrounding
area
-­‐
are
instead
relegated
the
Other.
This
strategy
includes
the
militarization
of
the
territory:
the
imperative
of
control,
security
and
surveillance
colonizes
many
aspects
of
our
civilian
urban
life
by
projecting
on
it
the
image
of
«battlefield»xi.
Conflicts
between
different
and
diverse
uses,
aspirations
and
needs
arise
and
contestation
is
therefore
unavoidable,
although
it
may
be
confined
to
small
initiatives,
in
peripheral
parts
of
the
world
and
be
unable
to
gather
momentum
or
credibility.
However
the
most
recent
crisis
has
stimulated
the
insurgence
of
new
urban
movements
or
revitalised
old
ones
and
motivated
fresher
debates
about
how
to
get
out
of
this
crisis
differently
from
the
past.
It
is
within
this
context
that
the
«right
to
the
city»
has
been
increasingly
investigated
in
order
to
capture
the
nature
of
the
conflicts
between
different
aspirations
and
to
build
a
process
of
change
that
involves
redistribution
of
material,
social,
political,
cultural,
and
symbolic
resources
based
on
principles
of
democracy,
equality,
recognition
of
differences
and
inclusiveness.
The
actions
and
proposals
invoked
in
the
name
of
the
‘right
of
the
city’
may
not
incorporate
the
theoretical
and
material
implications
of
Lefebvre’s
concept
and
they
may
not
contest
hegemonic
neoliberal
market
logics
or
the
dominant
modes
of
state
action.
As
Pithousexii
has
pointed
out,
popular
movements
tend
to
invoke
radical
changes
and
fight
the
status
quo,
in
particular
the
social-­‐economic
capitalist
system,
by
invoking
different
traditions,
in
which
the
economy
is
not
driven
by
market
mechanism.
While
the
discourses
of
governments,
international
organizations,
and
non-­‐radical
fringes
tend
to
co-­‐opt
the
«right
to
the
city»
as
a
slogan
for
reformism
or
for
legitimating
weak
participatory
forms
of
urban
governance,
or
exaggerating
the
systemic
implications
of
proposed
policies
and
urban
programmesxiii.
In
any
case,
the
discourses
around
the
concept
have
stimulated
the
debate
in
many
domains
and
«right
to
the
city»
itself
has
become
a
«contested
territory»
where
competing
imaginaries
are
struggling
for
hegemonyxiv.
A
point
in
case
is
the
conflicts
among
different
conceptions
emerged
in
Brazil
during
the
debate
and
endorsement
of
the
Estatuto
da
Ciudade
(City
Statute),
in
which
the
conceptions
close
to
Lefebvre
meaning
of
the
«right
to
the
city»
were
silenced
in
favour
of
those
actors
with
less
radical
perspectivesxv.
The
resurgence
of
the
«right
to
the
city»
as
a
slogan
and
manifesto.

4. 4
For
instance,
in
the
case
of
the
Charters
and
other
documents
released
at
the
World
and
European
Social
Forum,
the
«right
to
the
city»
takes
the
form
of
a
political
manifesto,
which
invokes
radical
transformations
through
social
and
political
actions,
challenging
the
privileges
of
powerful
global
neoliberalismxvi.
They
represent
the
cries
of
inhabitants,
increasingly
disenfranchised
and
marginalised,
against
inequalities
and
social
exclusion
and
a
call
for
democratic
participation
of
urban
dwellers
in
decision-­‐making
processes.
The
first
World
Charter
for
the
Human
Right
to
the
City
was
presented
by
the
non-­‐
governmental
organization
FASE
at
the
6th
Brazilian
Conference
on
Human
Rights
in
2001
and
collectively
authored
in
occasion
of
a
seminar
at
the
World
Social
Forum
in
2002.
Accordingly
to
Osorio,
two
previous
documents
appear
to
have
influenced
the
proposal:
the
European
Charter
for
the
Safeguarding
of
Human
Rights
in
the
City,
which
was
presented
at
Saint-­‐Denis
in
May
of
2000
and
the
Treaty
for
Democratic,
Equitable
and
Sustainable
Cities,
Towns
and
Villages,
approved
at
the
World
Conference
on
the
Environment
in
Rio
de
Janeiro
in
1992xvii.
The
second
one
was
released
in
July
2004
at
the
Social
Forum
of
the
Americas,
subsequently
presented
at
the
World
Urban
Forum
in
September
2004
and
later
discussed
in
Porto
Alegre
during
the
World
Social
Forum
in
January
2005xviii.
During
the
European
Social
Forum
in
2010,
a
document
containing
principles
and
actions
was
drafted
by
a
group
of
urban
movements,
associations,
activists,
researchers
and
unionists
with
the
aim
to
create
a
permanent
urban
forum
for
affirming
worldwide
«right
to
the
city»xix
For
the
petitioners
was
considered
essential
to
stop
evictions
of
inhabitants
from
their
homes,
public
spaces
and
districts;
the
safeguard
of
the
role
of
labor
and
its
rights;
and
to
oppose
to
the
initiatives
of
privatization
of
public
goods
and
spaces
and
a
number
of
principles
were
developed
accordinglyxx.
In
the
case
of
World
Urban
Forums
(WUF),
the
«right
to
the
city»
assumes
a
more
ambiguous
role,
in
reflection
of
the
broader
range
of
actors
and
their
different
mandates
that
participated
to
the
events.
In
2010
the
WUF
was
specifically
dedicated
to
«The
right
to
the
City
–
bridging
the
urban
divide»
and
the
concept
was
more
of
a
slogan
for
mitigating
the
adverse
effects
of
the
current
state
of
affairs
and
introducing
more
social
equity
and
democratic
participation
in
the
process
of
urban
planning
and
governance,
than
the
manifesto
for
a
revolutionary
change.
This
forum
was
the
result
of
a
process
started
in
2005,
when
the
International
Social
Science
Council
hosted
the
debate
on
«
Urban
policies
and
the
Right
to
the
City»xxi
organised
by
UNESCO
and
UN-­‐HABITAT.
Both
agencies
interpreted
the
«right
to
the
city»
as
a
rights-­‐based
approach
in
pursue
of
development
in
order
to
distribute
the
benefits
and
ensuring
equal
participation
in
the
development
process.
The
concept
was
put
forward
in
support
of
the
attainment
of
the
Millennium
Development
Goals,
which
states
that
the
international
community
is
engaged
in
the
effort
to
strengthen
respect
for
all
international
human
rights
and
fundamental
freedoms,
including
the
rights
to
developmentxxii..
The
«right
to
the
city»
was
embrace
because
it
was
considered
necessary
to
shift
from
a
needs-­‐based
approach
to
a
rights-­‐based
approach
in
order
to
ensure
the
(re)distribution
of
development
gains,
to
enhance
democratic
participation
of
all
urban
dwellers
in
the
decision-­‐making
process,
to
enable
urban
inhabitants
to
fully
realize
their
fundamental
rights
and
liberties,
and
promote
city
inclusiveness.
The
outcomes
the
2005’s
debate
were
presented
at
the
Vancouver
World
Urban
Forum
in
2006,
where,
ideas,
policies,
and
practices
promoting
the
«right
to
the
city»
were
shared
and
discussed
among
city
majors,
policy
makers,
international
organizations,
academicians,
professionals,
and
non-­‐governmental
organizations.
Finally
the
concept
landed
at
the
Rio’s
World
Urban
Forum
in
2010.
The
discourse
on
the
city
that
emerged
from
the
official
Dialogues,
in
spite
of
the
interesting
inputs,
was
considered
unsatisfactory:
a
missing

5. 5
opportunity
to
discuss
the
issues
at
stake.
The
radical
content
of
the
concept
originally
launched
by
Lefebvre
was
lost
in
order
to
achieve
a
broad
consensus
among
the
participating
actors
around
public
policy
and
legislation
that
combine
urban
development
with
social
equity
and
justice.
The
criticism
to
the
capitalistic
system
implied
in
the
Lefebvre’s
concept
was
dismissed
and
reduced
to
the
acknowledgement
of
distresses
and
problems
without
the
identifications
of
causes.
The
emphasis
was
on
social
inclusion,
urban
democracy
and
on
the
satisfaction
of
the
individual
rights,
but
within
a
structurally
unequal
system.
In
parallel
a
more
«populist»
Social
Urban
Forum
(SUF)
was
also
held
in
alternative
to
the
former.
This
appeared
to
be
«
colonised»
by
influential
people
connected
with
political
parties
or
big
NGOs,
and
only
at
first
glance
resulted
truly
alternative
to
the
official
WUF;
in
fact
it
did
not
provide
the
alternative
debate
and
discussion
that
activists
and
some
academics
expectedxxiii.
Concepts
and
theories
inspired
by
political
ideals
Meanwhile
an
increasing
section
of
urban
research
has
revisited
the
concept
of
the
«right
to
the
city»xxiv,
which
continues
to
be
a
«working
slogan
and
political
ideal»xxv
to
inspire
a
comprehensive
alternative
socio-­‐spatial
project.
Before
analysing
some
of
these
re-­‐interpretation
of
the
concept,
it
is
vital
to
recall
Henry
Lefebvre’s
meaning
of
the
«right
to
the
city»xxvi.
Two
principles
are
at
the
basis
of
his
concept.
First,
the
city
is
an
oeuvre,
that
is
a
projection
of
society,
a
complex
ensemble
and
meeting
of
systems
of
objects,
values
and
difference
in
the
course
of
transformation
and
revision.
Second,
that
all
inhabitants
participate
in
its
construction,
emphasising
the
space
of
everyday
life
as
site
of
resistance.
As
Purcell
has
stressed,
Lefebvre’s
claim
is
to
«radically
rethink
the
social
relation
of
capitalism,
the
spatial
structure
of
the
city
and
the
assumptions
of
liberal
democracy»xxvii.
The
right
to
appropriation
The
first
principle
includes
the
prerogative
of
physically
occupying
and
using
urban
space,
through
the
re-­‐creation
of
existing
spaces
and
the
production
of
new
ones.
The
emphasis
is
on
the
kind
of
city
inhabitants
have
the
right
to
access:
a
place
that
is
(and
can
be)
actively
produced
resisting
to
the
commodification
of
goods,
the
repressive
economic
and
political
power
of
the
bourgeoisie,
and
the
masculine
violence
imbedded
in
the
existing
representation
of
the
space,
which
erase
differences.
Lefebvre
call
for
a
city
in
which
use-­‐value
is
promoted
in
conflict
with
the
dominant
production
of
space
for
profit,
because
the
exchange
value
under
capitalism
and
industrialization
tends
to
destroy
the
city
and
to
subordinate
the
city
to
economic
forces
and
specific
interests.
It
is
important
to
remember
that
Lefebvre’s
«right
to
the
city»
just
anticipated
the
struggles
for
adequate
housing
and
public
services
taking
place
in
many
western
countries
in
the
1960s
and
1970s.
They
were
animated
by
social
movements,
labour
unions,
activists,
students,
and
other
city
dwellers
such
as
squatting,
rent
strikes,
tenants’
unionist,
campaigners
for
free
public
transports,
feminist
reclaiming
the
street,
just
to
mention
some.
This
experience
pointed
to
the
birth
of
an
alternative
civil
society
in
the
urban
core
and
brought
to
attention
issues
such
as
identity
politics,
rights
to
difference,
and
social
justice,
to
name
but
few,
which
had
been
relevant
for
the
application
of
spatial
and
geographical
principles
to
urban
and
regional
planning.
In
several
western
cities
the
protests
and
strikes
contributed
to
the
adoption
of
a
bundle
of
legislative
and
administrative
measures,
which
allowed
social
housing,
public
transportation,

6. 6
and
collective
amenities
such
as
schools,
kindergartens,
green
areas,
to
be
granted
to
a
certain
extent
to
the
entire
population.
The
majority
of
these
goods
were
recognised
as
«common
goods»xxviii
.
As
such
they
were
subtracted
from
the
rules
of
the
market
and,
as
Lefebvre
envisaged,
planned
and
managed
for
their
use-­‐value
and
not
market
value.
The
contribution
of
David
Harvey
to
the
«right
to
the
city»
dates
back
to
the
early
1970sxxix,
but
more
recently
he
has
pointed
out
that
the
«right
to
the
city»
is
the
«right
to
change
ourselves
by
changing
the
city»xxx
.
This
means
involves
imagining
and
institutionalize
a
new
mode
of
urbanization
and
reproduction
of
daily
life,
new
socio-­‐ecological
and
political-­‐
economic
relationships,
and
more
generally
the
generation
of
alternative
way
of
living
together,
arrange
our
lives
in
the
space,
and
habit
this
planetxxxi.
Harvey
calls
for
a
«dialectical
utopianism»
capable
of
overcoming
the
socio-­‐ecological
forms
imposed
by
uncontrolled
capital
accumulation,
class
privileges,
and
gross
inequalities
of
political-­‐economic
power
with
the
overthrowing
of
the
physical
and
institutional
structures
that
the
free
market
produces
xxxii
The
auspicated
alternative
city
should
point
towards
different
trajectories
of
developments,
revealing
a
variety
of
ways
of
life,
resources
uses,
relations
to
the
environment
and
cultural
and
political
forms,
and
sustain
human
rights
that
are
sympathetic
as
possible
to
the
right
to
be
different.
As
Lefebvre
forty
years
before,
Harvey
insists
on
the
reaffirmation
of
the
use
value
over
the
money
value
through
a
greater
democratic
control
over
the
land
rents
and
development
gains
created
by
the
urban
process
and
consequently
a
publicly
management
of
the
way
these
resources
are
re-­‐utilised
in
the
production
of
spacexxxiii.
The
commodification
of
basic
urban
social
amenities
and
the
exploitative
profit-­‐
based
forms
of
contemporary
capitalism
is
also
at
the
centre
of
the
debate
among
critical
urban
theorists.
Criticism
has
become
even
stronger
after
the
most
recent
global
financial
crisis
because
the
dominant
recovering
measures
perpetrate
the
abuses
of
financial
power
and
benefit
bankers,
financiers,
politicians,
and
those
people
that
have
produced
the
crisis
itself
at
the
expense
of
investments
in
basic
services
amenities
and
social
security.
For
instance
the
members
of
the
City
networkxxxiv1
effectively
translate
the
«right
to
the
city»
in
«Cities
for
People,
Not
for
Profit»,
an
urban
imaginary
that
auspicates
«radically
democratic,
socially
just
and
sustainable
forms
of
urbanism»
and
cities
directed
at
the
satisfaction
of
human
needs
instead
of
being
the
result
of
imperative
profit-­‐making
choicesxxxv.
Through
this
formulation
the
authors
oppose
the
«hypercommodification
of
urban
life»
and
socio-­‐spatial
forms
with
a
radical
proposal:
«the
abolition
of
the
rule
of
private
finance,
and
thus
with
it
the
rule
of
private
capital,
over
the
urban
economy,
and
indeed,
that
of
the
world
economy
as
a
whole»
xxxvi.
The
right
to
participation
Lefebvre
second
principle
dictates
that
inhabitants
should
play
a
central
role
in
any
decision
that
contributes
to
the
production
of
urban
space.
He
does
not
speak
about
citizens
or
residents
but
about
people
that
are
living
out
the
routine
of
the
city
life,
thus
he
establishes
an
egalitarian
principle:
all
people,
no
matter
if
they
have
or
not
other
rights
or
titles
(citizenships,
property
ownership,
etc.)
have
the
same
right
for
being
part
of
the
city.
This
principle
and
the
expansion
of
the
meaning
of
those
having
rights
over
the
city
has
become
very
important
for
broadening
the
discussion
about
space,
rights
and
citizenship
and
their
mutual
constitution;
as
well
as
expanding
the
conceptualization
and
application
of
the
liberal
tradition
of
citizenship
rights
xxxvii.
As
Fernandes
reminds
us,
contemporary
societies
have
gradually
reinforced
and
expanded
the
original
citizenship
rights
and
internationally
1

7. 7
recognised
in
treaties
and
declarations
and
nationally
safeguarded
by
legislation
and
constitutionsxxxviii.
However,
their
effective
materialization
in
socio-­‐legal
and
political
systems
is
very
wick
and
is
further
at
stake
within
the
profound
socio-­‐economic
changes
taken
place,
especially
in
the
context
of
economic
globalization
and
neoliberalismxxxix.
Therefore
the
«right
of
the
city»
and
its
implied
concept
of
citizen
offer
the
opportunity
to
update
the
dominant
legal
rights
of
man,
particularly
to
extend
the
attribute
of
citizens
to
all
those
people
that
are
still
considered
anachronistically
non-­‐citizensxl
.
The
right
to
public
space
A
derivation
of
the
right
to
participate
is
the
claim
for
an
inclusionary
public
domain
that
both
Friedmannxli
and
Mitchellxlii
put
forward
focusing
on
the
meaning,
accessibility
and
usage
of
public
spaces
among
different
people.
This
claim
has
become
stronger
in
time
when
the
public
space
is
physically
constrained
by
privatization,
commercialization
and
imposition
of
extensive
surveillance
and
threatened
by
pseudo-­‐public
space
and
political
discourses
that
instils
a
diverse
image
and
representation
of
the
publicxliii.
A
dramatic
consequence
is
that
are
diminishing
the
places
where
struggles
can
occur
because
new
forms
of
surveillance
and
control
are
implemented
at
discursive
and
material
level.
Both
authors
identify
in
public
spaces
the
place
where
people
express
their
sovereign
«right
of
the
city»
as
a
social
and
political
community.
For
Friedmann
the
imaginary
is
that
of
the
«convivial
city»,
a
city
that
provides
life
space,
cooperation,
solidarity
and
secure
existence
to
people,
and
in
which
its
streets
belong
to
the
people,
because
«before
they
are
traffic
arteries
to
facilitate
the
city’s
commerce,
streets
are
places
of
human
encounter»xliv.
For
Friedmann,
like
for
Harvey,
a
new
city
can
arise
only
when
a
new
type
of
development,
one
that
is
not
exclusively
based
on
the
rule
of
the
economy
and
unlimited
accumulation,
can
be
found
and
perused.
Mitchell
highlights
the
right
to
representation
(rights
of
free
speech,
of
assembly,
protest,
etc.),
which
needs
the
public
space
(physical
and
virtual)
for
being
exercised
and
achieving
social
justice.
The
author
states
that
it
is
fundamental
that
mass
movements
take
up
physical
spaces
because
the
visibility
of
struggles
is
crucial
in
spurring
recognition
of
the
legitimacy
of
demands
and
give
evidence
of
the
power
created
by
representation.
Though
Mitchell’s
thinking
is
based
on
the
idea
and
practice
of
public
space
in
the
context
of
American
cities,
the
concept
of
a
right
to
public
space
inherent
in
the
«right
of
the
city»
appears
a
key
element
in
the
livelihoods
of
the
urban
poor
of
the
cities
of
the
South.
In
spite
of
the
fact
that
what
a
public
spaces
is
cannot
be
established
in
abstract,
as
notions
of
public
and
private
space
vary
amongst
nations,
and
their
conceptions,
usage,
norms
and
legislation
depend
upon
culture,
political
control
both
at
the
symbolic
and
material
level.
The
right
to
a
pro-­‐poor
welfare
state
Parnell
and
Pieterse,
addressing
the
concept
from
the
perspective
of
the
countries
of
the
Global
South,
interpret
the
«right
of
the
city»
as
an
approach
for
urban
poverty
reduction,
on
which
the
development
role
of
the
state
should
be
based
upon,
and
from
which
alternatives
to
neoliberal
urban
managerial
positions
should
be
articulatedxlv.
Two
elements
are
emphasised
in
their
interpretation.
First,
though
the
approach
is
right-­‐based,
the
focus
on
poverty
reduction
points
not
only
at
the
realization
of
individual
human
rights
but
also
to
target
the
needs
of
households
and
neighbourhoods
collectively,
thus
insisting
on
socio-­‐economic
rights
and
ensure
effective
redistributive
actions.
The
objective
of
the
proposed
pro-­‐poor
welfare
system
is
not
only
much
about
targeting
the
distribution
of
urban
services
at
the
individual
scale,
but
instead
at
the
household
and
neighbourhood
scale
by
defining
public
goods,

8. 8
regulatory
reforms,
greater
law
enforcement
and
fiscal
policies
that
enable
redistribution
and
cross
subsidisation
within
cities.
Second,
the
realization
of
the
«right
of
the
city»
through
the
implementation
of
«multi
generation
rights
of
the
urban
poor»
implies
understanding
the
role
of
location
and
scale
across
city
regions,
and
the
imperative
of
involving
governments
at
various
scale,
not
only
national,
because
an
effective
democratic
processes
must
be
embedded
in
the
routine
functioning
of
the
state,
which
is
both
future
oriented
and
city
regional
in
scopexlvi.
For
the
authors
this
requires
the
building
up
of
an
administrative
state
architecture
and
operating
system
in
which
all
residents
are
recognised,
identified,
enumerated;
but
also
political
pressure
and
contestation
from
progressive
civil
society
groups.
Simone
appears
to
find
a
synthesis
between
Parnell
and
Pieterse’s
approach
and
Harvey’s
call
for
new
modes
of
urbanization,
new
socio-­‐ecological
and
political-­‐economic
relationships,
and
more
generally
the
generation
of
alternative
way
of
living
together.
He
affirms
that
the
«right
of
the
city»
should
go
beyond
the
welfare
state
and
«the
right
to
be
maintained
–
that
is,
to
be
housed
and
serviced»
by
embracing
«the
selective
right
to
use
the
city
as
an
arena
of
mutable
aspirations,
to
varying
degree
of
realization»xlvii.
This
right
cannot
be
fully
granted
by
any
form
of
urban
government,
but
governments
can
allow
a
most
open,
flexible,
not
hierarchical,
encapsulated
and
dominating
use
of
space
and
spatial
arrangements
that
inhabitants
can
put
together
by
connecting
with
institutions,
economic
activities
and
population
at
large.
It
means
to
allow
difference
and
allow
people
to
find
«their
own
vernaculars
and
practices
for
realizing
themselves
as
creators
of
life
and
not
just
consumers
or
victims
of
it»xlviiileaving
space
for
experimentation,
and
alternative
practice
of
production
of
space.
Theorise
the
city
today
The
«right
of
the
city»
also
represents
a
great
challenge
from
a
theoretical
point
of
view.
In
the
light
of
contemporary
urbanization
processes,
which
vary
greatly
from
continent
to
continent,
particularly
the
rapid
urbanization
and
the
consequent
urban
experience of non-­‐Western
countries
another
question
opens
up,
that
is
what
means
today
to
theorise
the
city.
Through
the
case
study
of
Sub-­‐Saharan
Africa
Smith
and
Jenkins
have
pointed
how
the
shift
from
rural
to
urban
is
also
a
determinant
phenomenon
for
the
articulating
of
the
«right
of
the
city»,
which
assumed
a
different
perspectivexlix.
In
this
respect,
Marcuse
translates
the
«right
of
the
city»
into
three
specific
complex
questions,
which
may
help
to
start
to
find
some
new
meanings:
whose
right,
what
right
and
what
city.
The
first
recognises
that
it
is
not
everyone’s
right
with
which
we
are
concerned,
but
primarily
with
those
that
do
not
have
it
nowl.
Therefore,
there
is
the
need
to
analyse
discontent,
deprivation,
exclusion
and
dispossession
across
economic,
cultural
and
political
lines,
but
also
recognising
that
there
is
a
conflict
among
rights,
demands
and
claims,
which
need
to
be
addressed.
The
second
stresses
that
the
right
is
not
a
legal
claim,
a
juridical
right
aiming
at
defining
what
is
allowed
to
people
or
own
to
people,
but
a
multiple
rights
and
a
moral
claim
«founded
on
fundamental
principles
of
justice,
of
ethics,
of
morality,
of
virtue,
of
the
good»li.
The
third
is
probably
the
most
crucial
question
for
urban
scholars
and
planners
as
it
calls
for
envisioning
the
future
city,
the
kind
of
city
we
want,
which
is
not
necessarily
a
city
in
the
conventional
sense.
Marcuse
identifies
some
general
principles:
«justice,
equity,
democracy,
the
full
development
of
human
potentials
or
capabilities,
to
all
according
to
their
needs,
from
all
according
to
their
abilities,
the
recognition
of
human
differences
[…]
sustainability
and
diversity
including»lii.

9. 9
The
dialect
between
(counter)
hegemonic
imaginaries
and
(counter)
hegemonic
practices
Recognising
the
urgency
to
give
voice
to
alternative
different
socio-­‐spatial
projects
and
different
forms
of
urbanization
in
order
to
contribute
to
the
meaning
of
the
«right
of
the
city»
and
following
Marcuse
call,
the
meaning
of
the
city,
this
Cahier
de
la
Faculté
d’Architecture
LaCambre-­‐Horta
has
explored
and
compared
different
concepts
and
practices
in
various
locations
since
the
opening
of
the
new
millennium.
The
working
hypothesis
is
that
the
analysis
of
the
oppositional
demands
embedded
in
the
various
conceptualization
of
the
«right
of
the
city»
or
the
material
practices
related
to
it
help
to
refine
what
a
city
is
for
and
for
whom.
The
re-­‐distribution
of
resources,
common
goods,
the
collective
planning,
and
participatory
democracy,
or
right
to
differences
(socio-­‐economic,
cultural,
spatial)
are
some
of
the
elements
addresses
by
the
experiences
selected
for
this
study.
The
common
concern
is
the
prioritization
of
equity
and
the
auspice
for
a
just
city
in
which
all
inhabitants’
interests
are
represented
and
taken
in
account
in
the
design,
planning
and
management
of
the
city.
This
preoccupation
unites
different
actors,
different
processes
of
urbanization
and
socio-­‐economic
and
political
contexts,
different
forms
of
urban
structures
and
urbanity
in
both
northern
and
southern
countries.
In
the
process
of
selection
of
experiences
for
the
study
the
counter-­‐hegemonic
nature
of
the
urban
policies,
programmes,
projects
and
imaginaries
produced
has
overruled
the
profound
differences
among
the
cases’
contexts
in
terms
of
socio-­‐economic
and
geo-­‐political
backgrounds,
urban
transformations
processes
and
political
economy
structures.
This
approach
was
suggested
by
the
fact
that
in
the
current
processes
of
globalization
and
societal
change
-­‐
and
in
the
context
of
the
neoliberal
project
and
global
market
economy
-­‐
the
destiny
of
cities,
and
more
generally
territories
is
increasingly
interdependent,
as
well
as
struggles,
resistance
and
emancipation.
The
selection,
synthesis
and
comparison
of
concepts
and
experiences
rely
on
the
utilization
of
two
categories
of
analysis:
urban
imaginary
and
urban
practices.
These
categories
emphasises
respectively
the
semiotic
and
material
dimensions
of
forces
and
processes
of
the
urban
space
-­‐
its
physical
form
and
technology,
its
socio-­‐economic
structure,
the
social
and
spatial
relations,
the
subjectivities
inhabiting
it,
the
relations
with
nature,
and
the
daily
life
reproduction.
The
concept
of
imaginary,
drawn
on
cultural
political
economyliii,
historical-­‐geographical
materialismliv
and
critical
discourse
analysislv,
stresses
that
the
discursive
activity
of
mapping
space
is
a
fundamental
prerequisite
for
the
structuring
of
any
kind
of
knowledge
and
a
crucial
tool
in
political
struggles.
In
this
perspective
an
imaginary
is
a
semiotic
order
(i.e.
a
specific
configuration
of
genres,
discourses
and
styles)
and,
as
such,
constitutes
the
semiotic
moment
of
a
network
of
social
practices
in
a
given
social
field,
institutional
order,
or
wider
social
formationlvi.
In
cultural
political
economy
an
economic
imaginary
has
been
defined
as
the
(re)articulation
of
various
genres,
discourses,
and
styles
around
a
particular
conception
of
the
economy
and
its
extra-­‐economic
conditions
of
existencelvii.
In
this
conceptual
framework
the
urban
imaginaries
are
understood
as
descriptive,
regulatory
or
projecting
narrations
of
complex
urban
reality,
which
reflect
through
the
articulation
of
various
discourses,
genres,
and
styles
a
particular
conception
of
cities,
human
settlements,
neighbourhood,
urban
governance,
or
citizenship,
and
are
devised
for
representing
and
simplifying
complex
realities
such
as
cities,
in
order
to
shape,
control,
manage,
or
govern

10. 10
themlviii.
Imaginaries
include
representations
of
how
cities
are
and
were,
as
well
as
representations
of
how
cities
might
or
could
or
should
be.
They
may
also
envisage
possible
socio-­‐spatial
practices,
activities,
policies,
social
subjects,
social
relations,
instruments,
objects,
space,
times,
and
values.
The
urban
imaginaries
are
profoundly
different
from
utopias
because
their
«performative,
constitutive
force
in
the
material
world»lix.
This
prerogative
is
the
result
of
the
continuing
interaction
between
the
semiotic
and
extra-­‐
semiotic
domain,
and
presupposes
some
degree
of
relations
to
the
real
material
world
–
to
needs
and
above
all
to
substantive
instrumentalities
for
implementation.
Where
an
imaginary
is
successfully
implemented,
it
transforms
and
naturalizes
the
elements
that
characterizes
it,
which
in
time
they
become
prerogatives
and
characteristics
of
the
new
cities.
Urban
imaginaries
are
also
different
from
the
actually
existing
socio-­‐spatial
urban
realities,
which
are
the
chaotic
sum
of
all
urban
activities
and
interventions
that
transform
significantly
the
socio-­‐spatial
structure
of
the
city
or
part
of
it.
The
totality
of
these
activities
is
so
unstructured
and
complex
that
it
could
not
be
an
object
of
effective
calculation,
management,
governance,
or
guidance.
Socio-­‐spatial
practices
are
instead
concrete
actions
involving
the
direct
transformations
of
the
material
world
undertaken
in
a
given
reality
(neighbourhood,
city,
region,
nation)
at
a
specific
time
involving
one
or
more
of
the
following
realms:
urban
planning,
urban
legislation,
urban
governance,
provision
of
common
goods
(water,
public
spaces,
infrastructure,
etc.),
housing,
urban
intervention
(regeneration,
rehabilitation,
re-­‐construction,
etc.),
citizenship
and
participation.
Such
actions,
activities,
interventions,
policies,
and
regulations
act
by
modelling
the
physical
environment
by
banning
or
promoting
actions,
behaviours
or
social
relations.
The
practices
have
great
transformative
power
and
include
both
the
planning
practices
themselves,
namely
those
developed
by
the
actors
involved
in
decision-­‐making
related
to
urban
transformations
process
(planners,
officials,
administrators,
etc..)
and
urban
practices,
that
is
the
way
in
which
the
city
is
lived
and
practiced,
resulting
in
continuous
adjustments
and
adaptations,
material
and
cultural
forms
of
appropriationlx..
However,
in
practices
there
is
also
an
implicit
semiotic
dimension,
as
there
is
an
interplay
between
materiality
and
symbolic,
between
concrete
uses
and
the
shape
of
the
space
on
the
one
hand
and
the
symbolic
values
and
processes
of
signification
on
the
other.
The
theoretical
framework
for
defining
urban
imaginaries
and
practices
also
refers
to
the
concept
of
counter-­‐hegemony
in
order
to
take
into
consideration
the
key
role
of
the
power-­‐
knowledge
relations
in
the
affirmation
of
specific
societal
projects.
Hegemony,
in
Gramsci,
is
a
comprehensive
term
for
conceptualising
power
and
the
struggle
for
power,
which
depends
on
consent
rather
than
just
force.
It
indicates
the
ability
of
one
social
class
to
dominate
over
others,
not
only
in
political
and
economic
terms,
but
also
in
cultural
terms,
referring
to
the
capacity
to
project
one’s
practice
as
universal
and
«common
sense»lxi.
However,
hegemony
is
not
a
static,
rigid
system
of
top-­‐down
domination,
but
a
dialectic
process
involving
counter-­‐
hegemony
(resistance
and
contestation
to
domination)
and
continually
transforming
itself
because
counter-­‐hegemonic
forces
challenge
dominant
institutions,
imaginaries,
and
practices
lxii.
The
struggles
for
hegemony
are
waged
through
battle
over
imaginaries,
but
also
through
the
mobilization
of
material
resources
and
capacitieslxiii
.
The
socio-­‐spatial
landscape
of
the
urbanised
capitalism
is
something
more
than
the
product
of
the
transformative
power
of
capitalism
and
technology;
its
incessant
restructuration
includes
changes
in
the
social
construction
of
relations
between
space-­‐times
and
it
needs
the
city
for
reproducing
itself
lxiv.
As
urbanization
creates
contradictions,
contestation
is
unavoidable
and
counter-­‐hegemonic
practices
and
imaginaries
represent
struggles
for
hegemony
and
contribute
to
the
production
of
an
alternative
city
and
society
by
linking
changes
in
the
urban

11. 11
environment,
spatial
relations
and
power
struggles
over
spaces
with
social
organization
and
transformations.
The
process
of
socio-­‐spatial
imaginaries
and
practices
formation
operates
at
the
semiotic
and
material
level.
Material
practices
needs
imaginaries
to
envisage
comprehensive
and
complex
counter-­‐hegemonic
projects,
and
imaginaries
need
the
experience
gained
by
material
practices
if
eventually
they
want
to
materialise
them.
Imaginaries
may
challenge
prevailing
worldviews,
show
the
contradictions
of
the
hegemonic
projects
and/or
propose
various
forms
of
alternative
sets
of
norms
and
ideals
of
justice,
democracy,
freedom,
citizenship
and
ecology
that
are
spatially
specific,
as
the
case
of
the
Movimento
dos
Sem
Teto
da
Bahia
in
Brazil
has
highlightedlxv.
Meanwhile
counter-­‐hegemonic
practices,
often
initiated
by
deprived
and
marginalised
groups
and
localities,
struggle
for
the
«de-­‐naturalization»
of
existing
conventions
and
practices
of
everyday
life
and
the
replacement
with
others
in
order
to
respond
to
their
unheeded
needs
and
aspirations
and
unrecognised
rights.
The
imaginaries
collected
in
this
Cahier
envisage
comprehensive
and
multidimensional
projects
stressing
the
social
relations,
urban
organization,
rights,
and
ecology
by
highlighting
principles
and
approach
to
guide
change.
Material
practices
instead
give
accounts
of
procedures,
tools,
knowledge
(employed
and
produced)
and
actors
involved
in
the
specific
localities.
All
the
included
experiences
operates
in
relation
to
an
interwoven
set
of
signifiers
(symbols,
values,
visions,
etc.)
which
are
discursive
in
nature,
and
through
practices,
assimilable
especially
participatory
arrangements,
get
reformulated
and
reconfigured.
On
the
one
hand,
local
specificities
(in
terms
of
culture,
values,
forms
of
inequality,
discrimination
and
erosion
of
democracy)
may
help
to
expand,
or
re-­‐interpret
the
meaning
given
to
the
concept
up
to
now.
On
the
other
hand,
the
investigation
of
the
strategies
adopted
(in
terms
of
policies,
activities,
discourse,
etc.)
function
as
learning
experiences,
increasing
our
knowledge
and
capacity
to
challenge
dominant
institutions,
imaginaries,
and
practices
in
pursuit
of
an
alternative
city.
Towards
the
synthesis
of
differences
and
the
re-­‐emergence
of
the
political
The
imaginaries
and
practices
presented
in
this
Cahier
appear
to
lead
towards
two
principle
conclusions,
though
these
are
expressed
through
different
principles,
strategies
and
tactics.
First,
all
papers
imply
that
a
greatest
challenge
for
the
city
yet
to
comelxvi
-­‐
and
for
the
first
time
in
the
history
of
humanity
-­‐
is
to
become
the
«unitary
answer»
to
a
multiplicity
of
needs
and
plurality
of
cultures,
identities
and
individualities.
Second,
the
condition
for
this
to
happen
is
that
the
people
(the
sovereign)
rescue
the
political
from
the
domination
of
the
given
economy.
As
affirmed
by
Gérronetzlxvii
and
reminding
us
Lefebvre,
the
synthesis
belongs
to
the
political
forces,
which
are
the
social
forces.
We
can
say
that
the
synthesis
of
all
possible
and
emerging
imaginaries,
each
representing
its
own
values,
aspirations
and
interests,
belongs
to
the
«political»lxviii
and
not
to
the
politicians,
administrators,
professionals
or
technicians,
or
even
worse
to
the
bankers.
This
imaginary
of
a
plural
city
must
project
from
the
circumstances
of
our
times
and
be
a
constant
aspiration,
which
does
not
built
once
for
all.
It
can
be
found
«away
from
longings
for
faraway
and
deracinated
citadels
of
achievement
that
need
no
further
work»
instead
we
have
to
move
«towards
a
pragmatism
of
the
possible
based
on
the
continual
effort
to
spin
webs
of
social
justice
and
human
well-­‐being
and
emancipation
out
of
prevailing
circumstances»lxix.
An
opportunity
for
a
«unitary
answer»:
the
«common
goods»
In
cities,
equality
in
difference
is
the
goal
of
a
dialectic
we
never
achieved.
We
can
broadly
say
that
it
requires
a
reasonable
balance
of
conditions
offered
to
different
and
diverse
social

12. 12
groups
and
individuals,
in
which
there
tends
to
be
a
fair
and
equal
participation
in
the
use
of
the
«city
as
a
good
and
not
a
commodity»
and
equal
chances
to
compete
in
its
governancelxx.
This
means
first
and
may
be
banally
but
ontologically
fundamental,
to
consider
the
city
as
a
system:
the
expression
and
spatial
organisation
of
a
society
-­‐
ensemble
of
individuals
and
families
that
are
joined
to
one
another
by
the
ties
of
shared
identity,
solidarity
and
common
rules.
Second
it
requires
to
see
the
city
as
a
value
in
itself,
for
the
use
that
society
can
made
of
it
and
not
for
what
the
city
can
add
in
term
of
material
wealth
(money),
and
power
to
selected
interests,
social
groups
or
individuals.
Third,
and
this
help
to
understand
what
a
«unitary
answer»
may
be,
it
means
to
satisfy
needs
that
individuals
cannot
satisfy
alone,
without
joining
together
and
sharing
the
management
of
a
community.
Here
we
must
consider
the
community
in
its
most
broader
sense
and
scalar
meaning,
from
being
the
representation
of
is
various
localities,
to
the
human
race,
who
share
the
same
destiny
of
belonging
to
the
same
planet.
We
should
go
beyond
the
archetype
of
urban
life,
searching
among
the
differences
and
great
diversity
of
cultural
and
material
conditions
of
the
various
realities
that
make
up
the
«global»,
critically
investigating
the
relationships
between
habitat
and
human
beings
in
the
course
of
our
existence
on
the
planet.
Elements
that
compose
that
should
not
come
only
from
the
history
and
tradition
of
the
European
or
Fordist
city,
but
also
from
all
the
other
histories,
cultures,
traditions
that
have
characterized
population
and
places
in
the
world.
From
the
European
experience,
not
always
fully
accomplished
but
certainly
auspicated
by
some
urban
scholar
like
Lefebvre,
Harvey
and
Castell,
should
be
retained
the
ideas
of
sharing
services
and
utilities
such
as
water,
health,
education,
open
spaces,
park,
and
other
collective
spaces,
and
the
access
to
housing
at
a
affordable
price.
This
means
to
consider
these
elements,
and
all
other
elements,
which
we
progressively
see
as
fundamental
to
our
existence
and
to
the
survival
of
the
human
species
and
habitat
as
«
common
goods».
The
system
of
property
rights
through
which
capitalism
universally
claims
complaint
has
been
recognized
as
defective
or
even
in
some
cases
has
been
considered
destructive
of
the
social
and
physical
worldlxxi.
We
must
overcome
the
vision
to
which
belonging,
posses
and
use
are
linked
to
property
rights,
which
means
giving
other
rights
equal
value,
relevance
and
recognitionlxxii.
A
system
of
collective
management
(like
common
goods)
is
increasingly
being
accepted
as
a
preferable
property
domainlxxiii.
The
attribution
of
goods
to
people
may
result
in
the
deprivation
of
those
goods
to
others
(either
in
another
place
or
another
time).
Therefore
we
need
to
take
account
take
account
of
the
elsewhere
and
of
the
future.
Among
the
common
goods
there
is
certainly
the
possibility
of
using
amenities
and
services
necessary
for
social
and
individual
needs
such
as
health,
learning,
culture,
recreation
as
well
as
the
natural
resources.
However,
the
commons
are
not
defined
once
and
for
all,
they
derive
from
the
availability,
needs,
culture,
and
results
of
struggles
over
conflicting
values.
In
this
regard
the
role
of
spatial
planning
can
be
decisive,
and
great
is
the
responsibility
of
planners
to
make
evident
to
decision
makers
the
consequences
of
their
choiceslxxiv.
An
example
of
the
application
on
the
ground
of
the
recognition
and
management
of
a
common
good
is
the
management
of
an
essential
service
like
water
outside
the
market
mechanism,
like
accoured
in
Caracas
and
Johannesburg
lxxv.
From
these
experiences
it
appears
that
a
new
idea
of
social
contract
between
inhabitants,
and
between
inhabitants
and
institutions
around
the
provision
of
water
can
be
born
and
this
can
also
be
the
starting
point
for
a
broader
vision
of
the
city.
Embrace
differences
and
give
space
to
plurality:
public
space
and
housing

13. 13
One
of
the
great
difficulties
is
to
embrace
and
give
space
to
the
plurality
of
values
and
needs
that
individuals
and
groups
express.
It
implies
the
dialectic
between
the
recognition
of
differences
-­‐
which
requires
to
locate
citizenship
not
in
the
«citizen»,
but
in
the
social
practices
of
integration
and
exclusion
exercised
by
institutions
of
the
statelxxvi
(1990)
-­‐
and
thinking
ways
to
construct
and
synthesise
a
new
broad
(though
not
total)
agreement
among
different
and
oppositional
interestslxxvii.
The
issue
of
acknowledging
and
representing
differences
in
a
city
that
experience
greater
cultural
diversity
and
social
mixture,
as
a
consequence
of
migration,
confers
to
the
«right
of
the
city»
a
new
and
more
complex
implication.
The
Lefebvre’s
principle
that
all
inhabitants
have
the
right
to
access
and
use
the
city
have
greatly
expanded
the
challenge
of
inclusions
in
face
of
migration
flow,
as
this
is
conflicting
with
national
legal
restrictions
and
exclusionary
measures.
Under
such
condition
the
«right
of
the
city»
must
brings
into
the
imaginary
of
the
future
city
the
accommodation
and
recognition
of
appropriation
of
space
and
right
to
participate
also
to
migrantslxxviii.
This
means
to
re-­‐organize
the
potential
configuration
and
organization
of
the
city
also
from
a
socio-­‐spatial
perspective
and
not
only
political
and
legal.
In
this
respect,
beside
housing
and
urban
services
«public
space
and
its
physical
as
well
as
symbolic
use
is
a
critical
ingredient
to
acceptance
of
rejection
of
diversity»
because
is
where
the
sense
of
understanding
and
tolerance
can
be
better
practicedlxxix.
It
acquires
importance
the
capacity,
by
those
that
have
been
recognised
traditionally
the
responsibility
of
planning
and
design,
of
listening
and
reading
diversity,
and
designing,
planning,
managing
public
spaces.
Therefore
policies,
as
well
as
urban
design,
for
public
spaces
becomes
critical
to
building
a
common
future.
They
requires
renewing
attention
and
new
approaches
for
embracing
the
expanding
variety
of
inhabitants,
including
tourist,
temporary
dwellers,
visitors
but
also
those
groups
that
are
not
generally
recognised
as
inhabitants:
squatters,
homeless,
and
so
forth.
The
city
must
show
«hospitality»lxxx
to
the
various
«guests»
and
resolve
conflicts
over
the
contrasts
arising
beetweing
conflicting
usage
among
social
groups.
Again,
the
public
space
become
and
essential
domain
for
giving
recognition
to
all
different
identities
composing
the
mosaic
of
the
city.
Learning
from
citizens’
knowledge
of
places
and
transform
it
in
a
multiplicity
of
uses,
which
allows
for
the
inclusion
of
peoplelxxxi
emerges
from
the
case
studies,
as
well
as
the
observation
of
day
life
and
interaction
between
spaceslxxxii,
but
also
objects
and
peoplelxxxiii,
in
order
to
understand
how
places
can
ease
the
appropriation
of
space
by
a
plurality
of
individuals.
However,
in
time
in
which
the
lack
of
affordable
housinglxxxiv
is
still
undermining
the
acquisition
by
inhabitants
of
a
safe
and
decent
shelter
-­‐
one
of
the
most
basic
means
of
survival
–
access
to
housing
and
land
for
shelter
in
the
Global
South,
as
well
as
housing
policies
that
recognise
the
diversity
of
the
inhabitants
in
the
Western
countries
remains
a
great
challenge.
The
right
to
housing
or
«the
housing
as
a
social
service»,
as
it
was
expressed
in
Italylxxxv,,
was
the
strongest
claim
embedded
in
the
early
articulation
of
the
Lefebvre’s
«right
of
the
city»
by
urban
movements
and
unions’
coalitions
in
Western
Europe
and
became
also
the
fundamental
right
attached
to
«right
of
the
city»
claimed
by
NGOs
and
other
organizations
in
Global
Southlxxxvi.
The
case
of
Angola
illustrated
in
this
Cahier
offer
the
opportunity
understanding
the
profound
differences
and
implications
of
conceptualizing
and
implementing
the
«right
of
the
city»
in
contexts
far
from
the
European
one,
where
Lefebvre’s
concept
was
first
developed.
It
examines
examples
of
alternative
approaches
to
providing
access
to
housing
and
land
by
exposing
the
challenges
and
contradictions
posed
by
the
intersection
of
a
socio-­‐
political
system
where
prevalent
norms
derived
from
indigenous
or
pre-­‐colonial
socio-­‐cultural
orders

14. 14
and
post-­‐war
legislative
change
for
the
reconstruction
and
‘development’
of
the
country
based
on
policies
which
were
not
discussed
publicly
and
which
ignored de facto land rightslxxxvii.
It
emerges
that
though
securing
the
right
to
housing
cannot
be
equalled
to
the
«right
of
the
city»
and
it
does
not
promise
the
appropriation
by
its
inhabitants
of
the
use
values
of
the
urban
space,
with
all
that
it
means
in
Lefebvre
terms,
and
full
democratic
participation
to
the
decision-­‐making
processes,
and
to
public
life,
it
remains
a
fundamental
accomplishment,
which
we
cannot
dismiss,
even
if
it
appears
to
be
a
conformist
approach
to
the
«right
of
the
city»lxxxviii.
However,
as
for
many
other
«goods»
housing
may
need
to
be
disassociated
from
the
right
to
private
property
and
the
needs
of
capital
accumulation.
The
case
of
the
homelessness
in
Canada
offer
another
point
in
caselxxxix
and
show
how
the
inclusion
of
shelters
for
the
homeless
in
the
housing
policies
helped
to
give
tangible
meaning
to
the
discourse
on
«right
of
the
city»
in
Canada
and
start
to
move
towards
its
translation
in
material
terms.
Building
a
shared
imaginary
and
moving
beyond
mainstream
rational
planning
The
construction
of
a
shared
imaginary
among
many
different
and
often
oppositional
urban
actors
and
therefore
the
synthesis
of
oppositional
claims,
needs,
interests,
values
and
aspirations
about
city
(and
society!)
remains
probably
the
greatest
challenge
we
have
to
face
both
as
professionals,
intellectuals
and
citizens.
Purcell
suggests
to
think
it
in
terms
of
building
«networks
of
equivalence»
which
are
«counter-­‐hegemonic
combinations
of
differentiated
but
equivalent
popular
struggles»xc.
Equivalence
stands
for
equally
and
mutually
recognition
of
each
diverse
claim,
in
which
«the
groups
must
work
together
to
forge
a
shared
vision,
a
vision
that
allows
each
to
understand
their
co-­‐operative
project
in
a
similar
way»xci.
This
does
not
make
the
networks
collective
or
unitary
bodies
with
a
single
will,
instead
each
will
must
resonate
with
the
others
and
contribute
to
build
something
that
does
not
exists
yet.
The
concept
of
«networks
of
equivalence»
assumes
that
in
the
social
field,
a
range
of
different
political
movements
are
simultaneously
engaged
in
«widening
themselves
out»
by
entering
into
political
common
cause
with
other
groups
in
societyxcii.
Many
papers
of
this
Cahier
have
present
cases,
which
may
be
seen
as
attempts
of
«networks
of
equivalence»,
or
have
pointed
out
to
practices
which
may
help
us
to
create
«networks
of
equivalence»
and
the
recuperation
of
the
«political»
through
a
dialectic
interaction
between
urban
designers,
architects,
urban
planners
and
inhabitants,
including
individuals
and
organised
urban
movementsxciii.
In
particular
the
case
of
the
Right
to
the
City
national
alliance
in
the
United
States
appears
to
be
a
successful
effort
to
bring
in
diversity
and
at
the
same
to
unify
visions
in
order
to
fight
the
negative
impacts
of
gentrification
and
moving
towards
the
building
of
more
sustainable
and
just
communitiesxciv.
Working
with
not
only
different,
but
also
competing
and
conflicting
interests,
requires
an
incessant
process
of
analysis
and
attempts
of
democratic
participatory
planning
initiatives
by
urban
design
and
urban
planning
related
practitioners.
The
concept
of
the
«right
to
the
city»
planning
theoreticians
and
practitioners
inclined
toward
activism
offered
inspirations
and
indications
of
how
to
move
away
from
mainstream
planning
paradigm,
as
Leavitt
and
Yonder
in
this
Cahier
explain.
The
authors
propose
an
alternative
framework
for
urban
planning
practice
and
education
consciously
tied
to
social
movement
building
and
stressed
on
the
«everyday
life».
The
latter
is
understood
beyond
the
meaning
of
daily
routine.
The
terms
embrace
of
all
«that
do
not
conform
to
the
common
organizational
logic
of
modern
society
[…]
difference
and
contradictions,
the
extraordinary,
the
hidden
potentialities
and
“unfulfilled

15. 15
possibilities”»,
in
order
to
focus
«on
the
local
and
particular
settings
and
how
the
particular
relates
to
the
broader
society
through
a
web
of
relations»xcv
and
not
forgetting
the
most
vulnerable,
the
hidden,
the
forgotten,
the
marginalised,
the
«other».
But
also
by
recognizing
the
nuances
and
subtleties
of
the
living
spaces
even
in
the
so
called
“slums”
by
«integrating
into
urban
design
and
planning
the
notion
of
casual,
rhizomatic,
fluid
and
of
course
incremental
production
of
spaces
that
respond
to
people’s
needs
and
aspirations,
enabling
sustained
adaptation»xcvi.
A
critical
regionalist
approach
to
architectural
and
urban
production
has
been
called
for
by
the
authors
in
order
to
«negotiate
the
diverse
desires
of
the
people
and
the
need
to
formally
upgrade
infrastructures
and
living
conditions
while
realizing
the
rights
of
citizens
to
participate
in
the
production
of
Mumbai»xcvii
The
re-­‐insurgence
of
the
political
appears
linked
not
only
to
the
rethinking
of
more
democratic
participatory
planning
(and
design)
processes,
but
also
to
the
recognition
of
the
importance
of
acting
politically
and
giving
back
to
politics
the
fundamental
role
that
deserves
in
society
making
and
change,
and
the
role
played
by
discourse
practices
in
the
battle
alternative
production
of
space.
This
confirms
the
fundamental
role
that
the
re-­‐instatement
of
«the
political»
plays
in
creating
and
building
socio-­‐spatial
resistance
to
hegemonic
projects,
as
discourse
are
highly
ideological
and
political
practices.
The
case
of
Angola,
where
the
«political»
is
confined
to
the
individual
and
household
level
due
to
a
weak
civil
society
and
a
constrained
public
sphere,
demonstrates
once
again
the
necessity
to
take
of
a
social
organization
of
the
politicalxcviii.
Several
cases
studies
points
out
to
the
ambivalent
nature
of
the
state
in
the
processes
of
urban
development,
even
when
officially
oriented
to
the
inclusion
of
the
marginalised
and
dispossessed
and
the
role
it
plays
in
reframing
radical
claims
of
popular
struggles
xcix.
The
analysis
of
the
way
the
right
to
the
city
was
put
into
use
in
contemporary
South
Africa
shows
that
the
state
tends
to
tie
to
a
technocratic
conception
of
development;
and
by
re-­‐structuring
its
discourse,
but
also
through
the
repression
of
activists,
damaged
the
capacity
to
implement
the
right
to
the
city,
but
not
the
capacity
of
continuing
proposing
alternative
imaginaries
to
the
return
to
revanchismc.
The
experience
of
the
Movimento
dos
Sem
Teto
da
Bahia
in
the
city
of
Salvador
da
Bahia
show
how
was
crucial
the
political
training
of
its
members
for
being
transformative
at
being
able
to
push
for
substantial
changes
in
social,
cultural
and
economic
relations
in
the
city
and
beyondci.
While
the
neologism
of
«contested
urbanism»
developed
by
Boano,
Garcia
Lamarca
and
Hunter
helped
to
better
understand
the
power
relations
embedded
in
the
urban
transformations
of
Dharavi,
which
systematically
excludes
slum
dwellers
in
the
production
and
management
of
their
living
spaces,
and
more
importantly
it
shows
us
the
nuances
for
be
found
in
this
battles
emerged
in
response
to
an
immediate
everyday
need
or
concern,
but
often
expanding
into
other
areas
as
new
needs
came
up.
In
conclusion
it
is
also
significant
that
a
number
of
the
papers
included
in
this
Cahier
expressed
the
necessity
of
a
dialectic
between
«expert
knowledge»
of
the
space
and
other
types
of
knowledge,
from
the
traditional
and
quotidian
usage
of
the
space,
or
from
the
constant
and
almost
ethnographic
observations
of
the
interactions
between
human
beings
and
space
and
human
being
and
objectscii
for
instance.
However,
this
call
requires
to
be
taken
at
a
deeper
level.
Santosciii
may
help
us
to
define
what
it
may
take
when
he
explain
the
necessity
of
going
beyond
the
«abyssal
thinking»
-­‐
an
intellectual,
philosophical
and
political
disposition
based
on
(Western)
modern
science
and
its
epistemological
disputes
between
scientific
and
non-­‐scientific
forms
of
truth.
This
had
the
ability
to
become
a
dispositive
of
separation
that
create
divisions
within
the
radical
reality,
making
some
recognizable,
respected,
relevant,
and
condemning
all
the
rest
irrelevant
and
non-­‐existent.
Instead
he