GEOG 347: Public Space & Cultures of Democracy 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. -David Harvey

Harvey (2008) The Right to the City "Urbanization has always been a class phenomenon". (p. 24) Urbanization as solution to economic crisis: Surplus absorption through urbanization...has entailed repeated bouts of urban restructuring through "creative destruction" which nearly always has a [violent] class dimension. Paris, 1850s; New York, 1950s

Haussmann's Plan for Paris (1850s) "His mission was to solve the surplus capital and unemployment problem through urbanization." (p. 26) "A transformation of urban infrastructures (boulevards, demolition, etc)" Slum clearance-- removal of working class and underclass from city center "the construction of a new way of life and urban persona (consumption, tourism, pleasure)".

Moses' Plan for New York City (1940s-50s) New metropolitan scale for thinking of the urban process Highways, bridges, tunnels Suburban home ownership for the middle classes Cars, appliances Individualized identity tied to property

Capitalist Urbanization Today Lefebvre post-1968: urbanization central to the survival of capitalism and thus a crucial focus of class struggle Neoliberal era post-1970s 2008 Crash- housing bubble Urbanization of China Urban life as a commodity Cities fragmented, divided, unequal, conflict-prone Accumulation by dispossession: capture of valuable land from low-income populations

Urban social movements for the Right to the City Right to the City is restricted to small elite who can shape cities after their own desires Demand for "greater democratic control over the production and utilization of the surplus" Global urban struggle

Paris 1848

Paris 1871

Oaxaca 2006