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The right to the city and beyond

Author

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  • Andy Merrifield

Abstract

One of Henri Lefebvre's last essays, “Quand la ville se perd dans une métamorphose planétaire”, published in Le monde diplomatique in 1989, is by far one of his most enigmatic. The title alone says bundles; an atypically downbeat Lefebvre is on show, two-years before death, dying like his cherished traditional city: when the city loses its way, he says, when it goes astray, in a planetary metamorphosis. This article mobilizes Lefebvre's valedictory lament. It does so to problematize his very own thesis on “the right to the city”, especially in the light of recent bourgeois re-appropriation. The discussion tries to rework and reframe Lefebvre's celebrated late-60s' radical ideal, propelling it into the contemporary neo-liberal global context, negating it by moving beyond it, affirming in its stead a “politics of the encounter”. If a concept didn't fit, somehow didn't work, Lefebvre insists that we should always ditch that concept, abandon it, give it up to the enemy. So, too, perhaps, with the right to the city. The political utility of a concept, Lefebvre says, isn't that it should tally with reality, but that it enables us to experiment with reality, that it helps us glimpse another reality, a virtual reality that's there, somewhere, waiting to be born, inside us. A politics of encounter, I suggest, forces us to encounter ourselves, concretely, alongside others; it doesn't make facile, abstract rights claims for something that's now redundant in an age when planetary urbanization has become another circuit of capital.

Suggested Citation

  • Andy Merrifield, 2011. "The right to the city and beyond," City, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 15(3-4), pages 473-481, August.
  • Handle: RePEc:taf:cityxx:v:15:y:2011:i:3-4:p:473-481
    DOI: 10.1080/13604813.2011.595116
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    Citations

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    Cited by:

    1. Neil Brenner & Christian Schmid, 2014. "The ‘Urban Age’ in Question," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 38(3), pages 731-755, May.
    2. Charalampos Tsavdaroglou, 2019. "Reimagining a Transnational Right to the City: No Border Actions and Commoning Practices in Thessaloniki," Social Inclusion, Cogitatio Press, vol. 7(2), pages 219-229.
    3. Justus Uitermark & Walter Nicholls & Maarten Loopmans, 2012. "Cities and Social Movements: Theorizing beyond the Right to the City," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 44(11), pages 2546-2554, November.
    4. Agatino Rizzo, 2020. "Megaprojects and the limits of ‘green resilience’ in the global South: Two cases from Malaysia and Qatar," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 57(7), pages 1520-1535, May.
    5. Christopher Yap, 2019. "Self-Organisation in Urban Community Gardens: Autogestion, Motivations, and the Role of Communication," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(9), pages 1-21, May.
    6. Sören Becker & James Angel & Matthias Naumann, 2020. "Energy democracy as the right to the city: Urban energy struggles in Berlin and London," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 52(6), pages 1093-1111, September.
    7. Jennie Middleton, 2018. "The socialities of everyday urban walking and the ‘right to the city’," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 55(2), pages 296-315, February.
    8. Antonis Vradis, 2013. "Alternatives Introduction," City, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 17(3), pages 399-399, June.
    9. Qian Hui Tan, 2013. "Smell in the City: Smoking and Olfactory Politics," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 50(1), pages 55-71, January.
    10. Swarnabh Ghosh & Ayan Meer, 2021. "Extended urbanisation and the agrarian question: Convergences, divergences and openings," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 58(6), pages 1097-1119, May.
    11. Charalampos Tsavdaroglou & Maria Kaika, 2022. "The refugees’ right to the centre of the city: City branding versus city commoning in Athens," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 59(6), pages 1130-1147, May.
    12. Charalampos Tsavdaroglou, 2020. "The Refugees’ Right to the Center of the City and Spatial Justice: Gentrification vs Commoning Practices in Tarlabaşı-Istanbul," Urban Planning, Cogitatio Press, vol. 5(3), pages 230-240.
    13. Shannon Walsh, 2013. "We won't move," City, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 17(3), pages 400-408, June.
    14. Clive Barnett, 2014. "What Do Cities Have to Do with Democracy?," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 38(5), pages 1625-1643, September.
    15. Ben Gerlofs, 2020. "Dreaming dialectically: The death and life of the Mexico City charter for the right to the city," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 57(10), pages 2064-2079, August.
    16. Megan J. Grace & Jen Dickie & Phil Bartie & Caroline Brown & David M. Oliver, 2023. "Understanding Health Outcomes from Exposure to Blue Space Resources: Towards a Mixed Methods Framework for Analysis," Resources, MDPI, vol. 12(11), pages 1-20, November.

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