The ‘Right to the City’ in the Context of Shifting Mottos of Urban Social Movements

Abstract

In order to explain the traction, which the right to the city slogan currently enjoys within urban resistance movements and beyond, this article contextualizes its emergence in the shifting framework of postwar political-economic regimes and then traces and compares the different versions of this motto, which has become a defining feature of urban struggles not just in the Euro-American core, but around the world – though with different meanings. It distinguishes a radical Lefebvrian version from more depoliticized versions as widely used in the global NGO context, problematizing the latter for limiting the participatory demand to inclusion within the existing system. The conclusion opens up the question of the implications of the current crisis for the right to the city movement.