Right to the City: A Liberal-Democratic Perspective

Abstract

Over the last four decades, the concept ‘the right to the city,’ first developed by French philosopher Henry Lefebvre, has traveled from Europe to the rest of the world. This article discusses the key questions relating to the right to the city, and provides an overview of the evolution of this concept and how this abstract concept has inspired and empowered the struggles to fight against capitalist globalization worldwide, in particular the global south. In the global north, the right to the city has been widely exploited as an important tool to safeguard citizen's equal access to scarce social resources and opportunities, whereas in the global south, its enlightening power is being actively excavated to foster social equity, civil society, and democracy. The creative exploitation of this concept has been put in place in a variety of locales and leads to the enactment of a number of extended agenda locally and internationally. The enduring global economic recession provides opportunities for more expansive and interconnected exercises of the right to the city through allying the North and the South.