CounterCartographies Reading: The Right to the City.
As part of our CounterCartographies initiative to understand visual culture in relation to the politics of space, our monthly reading group hopes to create conversations to consider ways in which the built environment can be understood both historically and theoretically.
We welcome people from all backgrounds, language groups and walks of life to join in our discussion.
In this installment, we will be reading David Harvey’s The Right to the City (2008).
The city can often represent the site of spiraling inequality and unfairness. Luxury skyscrapers tower above segments of poverty and homelessness.
Sweeping gentrification threatens the fabric of entire communities. The privatization of land rapidly diminishes the possibility of shared, common spaces.
And yet, cities have also been historically situated as the site for revolutionary struggle.
This is a tradition which has become increasingly relevant in contemporary politics, as evidenced by the proliferation of Occupy movements across the globe, the uprisings of the Arab Spring as well as civil society pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong and Kuala Lumpur.
Come and discuss these questions and more, at the latest installment of the CounterCartographies reading group.
Kindly note, this is a reading group. Please read the essay before joining the discussion. To read text, please visit: https://newleftreview.org/II/53/david-harvey-the-right-to-the-city