The Right to the City
architecture
by Rex R. Thomas
For architecture students in the late 1970s and early 1980s, late night
studio sessions often revolved around two worries: the death of Main
Street, and the death of public space. The fi rst thing already happened.
We’ve come through it and out the other side where malls are now
dying, and a sprawl of new confections threatens the land with more
retail, dining, and entertainment than we’ll ever need. The second
thing is an insidious, invisible corrosion that threatens more than just
good design. Today, we must reassert our Right to the City. Here in Orlando, the space is structured around private enterprise. It’s
not just City Hall trembling in the CNL Tower’s dark shadow. Capital-
ism is expressed in our commute: the farther out you live, the richer
you are. Keeping Sunrail and Lynx operating within a hair’s width of
failure is an expression of capitalism, and it takes away your right to
the city. Keeping public schools in starvation mode takes away your
right to the city. Criminalizing public protest takes away your right to
the city. The list goes on and on.
French philosopher Henri L efebvre wrote in the 1970s about how
the space of a city is shaped to reinforce those in power. It isn’t just
the plazas and buildings, but the systems that link urban design and
people together. Since then, a number of other writers like Anthony
Orum and David Harvey have advanced Lefebvre’s theory. Harvey, an
NYU professor, advocates the notion of a Right to the City. As citizens,
he notes, we have conceded this right far too often and we need to
reassert our ownership of it before it is too late. When I read his work,
I think about our own city and whether we’ve lost that right here. For artists, it is a delicate balance. Arts festivals galore, that seem to be
indicative of a thriving creative community, are actually tightly con-
trolled, government-sponsored events. Artists must wear nametags,
submit work in advance, and obey very strict rules to participate. The
only artist-led creative expression is graffi ti. The public realm is now a
place where one can only be an agent under highly scripted, heavily
monitored conditions.
Harvey points out that the city is a communal enterprise, one in which
we all participate in the making of. We are all, therefore, sharehold-
ers with a stake in the outcome. Capitalism, he notes, always skews
this in favor of the large landowners or business enterprises, but in
the current times, these fi rms want to leave nothing to chance. They
have therefore co-opted government to privatize places and things
that were once public. So what? you may shrug. The city isn’t a bad
place; in fact things seem pretty good.
Orlando Arts & Culture, v. 2.4
This has all come about to consolidate the power of the fi rms that
have so much at stake. Protests and marches are ways to reclaim our
right to the city. Artists who choose to organize and express them-
selves in public—outside of offi cialdom—reclaim their right to the
city. Ultimately, we the people design our own urban space; it is ours
and we dare not hand it over unless we also want to hand over other
rights, too. So far, few people are ready to go there.
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