THE RIGHT TO THE CITY: THE HISTORY OF THE CONCEPT

Abstract

The article provides a historical and conceptual analysis of the “right to the city”, a political and philosophical concept meaning the right of citizens to transform urban life. The “right to the city” is a concept focused on the orderly and reasonable participation of different groups of citizens in the common space of the city. The first part of the article touches on the biography, own definitions of this concept in the works of the French Marxist philosopher Henri Lefebvre. The concept of the right to the city was first formulated by him in the article “The right to the city” (1967). At the end of the XX — beginning of the XXI century, this concept became the basis for discussing the problem of social justice in the urban context both at the theoretical level in the works of academic authors from social theory, sociology, urban studies, and in the political plane, becoming a popular slogan for urban social movements around the world, including Russia. In 2001, the City Statute, based on the idea of the right to the city, was consolidated at the level of the federal constitutional legislation of Brazil. The key difficulty in implementing the “right to the city” in practice is related to its semantic uncertainty. Another difficulty is related to the declarative nature and the lack of legal real mechanisms for its implementation in the political and legal level. Finally, the problematic side of this right lies in the difficulty of distinguishing between justified and unjustified claims within the framework of the right to a city.