"The city, the noted urban sociologist Robert Park once wrote, is:
man's most consistent and on the whole, his most successful attempt to remake the world he lives in more after his heart's desire. But, if the city is the world which man created, it is the world in which he is henceforth condemned to live. Thus, indirectly, and without any clear sense of the nature of his task, in making the city man has remade himself.
The right to the city is not merely a right of access to what already exists, but a right to change it after our heart's desire. We need to be sure we can live with out own creations (a problem for every planner, architect and utopian thinker). But the right to remake ourselves by creating a qualitatively different kind of urban sociality is one of the most precious of all human rights. The sheer pace and chaotic forms of urbanization throughout the world have made it hard to reflect on the nature of this task. We have been made and remade without knowing exactly why, how, wherefore and to what end. How then can be better exercise this right to the city?
The city has never been a harmonious place, free of confusions, conflicts, violence. Only read the history of the Paris Commune of 1871, see Scorsese's fictional depiction of gangs of New York in the 1850s, and think how far we have come. But then think of the violence that has divided Belfast, destroyed Beirut and Sarajevo, rocked Bombay [...]. Calmness and civility in urban history are the exception not the rule. The only interesting question is whether the outcomes are creative or destructive. Usually they are both: the city is the historical site of creative destruction. Yet the city has also proven a remarkably resiliant enduring and innovative social form.
But whose rights and whose city?"
Harvey, David (2003) "The Right to the City". International Journal of Urban and Regional Research. Published in: Lin, Jan & Mele, Christopher (2013) The Urban Sociology Reader. London: Routledge. p 429.
