Abstract
The present reading of ‘The Right to the City’—one of the most discussed and quoted writings in the field of urban studies—has a limited scope, focusing on two main concepts and issues: ‘city’ and ‘urban planning’, the fundamental objects and fields of research and action of planners. With the aim of extrapolating a ‘planning lesson’ from a classical text, this paper offers a critical discussion of the meaning of the city as a mediation, and therefore an analysis of L.’s idea of an ‘intermediate domain’ to which the city belongs, in between what in Gramscian terms could be called ‘structure’ and ‘agency’. The paper also tries to highlight the implications that this peculiar position of the city may have for urban planning.
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Notes
- 1.
In fact, thousands of works have been written, which are based on Lefebvre’s ‘The right to the City’, or are somehow referred to it, so much so that even to provide a ‘simple’ literary review on the topic would require an enormous work—and probably more, if the aim is to piece the contributions together to get a history (or also a geography) of its influence. Just checking on Scholar, one can finds about 3,800,000 writings which are directly or indirectly related to Lefebvre’s Right to the City, and more than 70,000 those which explicitly quote it—10,000 only in 2019 (while over a million those referring to David Harvey on the same topic). We could ask ourselves if really there is still something that has not been said, if our contribution is really necessary. I myself already wrote a short paper on ‘The right to the city’ (see Pizzo 2013), although with a very limited scope also in that case (Harvey’s essay with the same title, 40 years after Lefebvre’s), as well as on the concept of ‘self-organization’ (2019).
- 2.
Unfortunately, it is not possible to get in English the nice pun Giancarlo Paba and Camilla Perrone used. They proposed to us to deliver ‘Lezioni di Piano’ [Planning lessons], using the word ‘Piano’ which in Italian is both the music instrument, and the major planning instrument.
- 3.
See C. Schmid essay in this same collection.
- 4.
It is rather difficult to ‘label’ Lefebvre or to encapsulate his work within one disciplinary field. By education, he is considered a philosopher and a sociologist, one among the most important French intellectuals, of the ‘60s and ‘70s in particular. He vividly represents (the need of) contamination and scouting through disciplinary boundaries, when tackling urban phenomena in particular. On this regard, see also Pizzo (2019), with Gribat et al. (2019).
- 5.
Although it risks to sound obvious, and applicable to many other books, indeed it lays at the root of an entire literature: it can be the starting point of a journey through an immense library, where each book, essay or author brings to another.
- 6.
Which does not mean only that to have an in-depth understanding of what Harvey or Brenner, or Schmid (just to name the more prominent ones) wrote we could need to go back to one of their main sources of inspiration: in similar cases, going back to the original text is imperative, since the literature referred to this work is so vast and variegated (Pizzo and Rolnik 2019). Let us just think about the relationship between Lefebvre and Harvey; the acknowledged debt of Brenner (e.g. 2000, 2014), Schmid (e.g. 2018) and also others (see in particular: Buckley and Strauss 2016) for the concept of ‘planetary urbanization’, which occupied a major part of planning and geographic debates in the last decade or so.
- 7.
It is important to underline also the radical difference from this ‘capacity of playing’ and the idea of free-time (leisure), which is the object of a strong critique (see e.g. pp. 168–171).
- 8.
See also Madden and Marcuse (2016), pp. 131–133.
- 9.
- 10.
See the dedication following the date, at the end of the book.
- 11.
On the ‘missed’ relation between Lefebvre and Gramsci, see Tosel (2017). Regarding the lack of quotations, it has been noted that L. did not use to quote, and this would depend on his way of writing (dictating to others).
- 12.
In this regard, I found interesting resonances with Emilio Sereni’s approach to the landscape (see the Introduction to: 1961, Storia del paesaggio agrario italiano. Bari: Laterza).
- 13.
“Suburban disorder harbours an order: a glaring opposition of individually owner-occupied detached houses and housing estates. This opposition tends to constitute a system of significations still urban even into de-urbanization. Each sector defines itself (by and in the consciousness of the inhabitants) in relation to the other, against the other” (p. 80). I experienced this myself, doing research on Corviale and Tor Bella Monaca, two huge public housing estates in Rome, adjacent to smaller scale—low density borgate of illegal origin.
- 14.
In Italy, in particular, many scholars prefer to translate housing with inhabiting [abitare]. See Pizzo (2020).
- 15.
According to Lefebvre, the housing question, has “disguised the problems of the city and urban society” (p. 177), somehow following Engels, which considered it as a ‘minor’ problem that could not be solved ‘independently’ but together with the more general problems of capitalism. But for Lefebvre, the ‘solutions’ adopted for answering to the housing needs negate the city (the housing models we mentioned before produce habitats, and not city; and determine to inhabit, not to fully live the life of the city).
- 16.
“The masters of old had no need for an urban theory to embellish their cities. What sufficed was the pressure exercised by the people on their masters and the presence of a civilization and style which enabled the wealth derived from the labour of the people to be invested into 'Oeuvres'. The bourgeois period puts an end to this age-old tradition. At the same time this period brings a new rationality, different from the rationality elaborated by philosophers since ancient Greece (…)” (ibid.).
- 17.
The centrality of this dimension, and the need to deeply consider historical transformations of politics, would require a much deeper inquiry. Just as an example, we could consider the idea of urban spaces related to segregation in contemporary populisms and the re-articulation of conflicts (including urban ones) in populist perspectives (on this, see Mouffe 2005, 2013).
- 18.
Having “an unquestionable knowledge of the real problems of the modern city, a knowledge which gives rise to a planning practice and an ideology, a functionalism which reduces urban society to the achievement of a few predictable and prescribed functions laid out on the ground by the architecture. Such an architect sees himself as a 'man of synthesis', thinker and practitioner. He believes in and wants to create human relations by defining them, by creating their environment and decor. Within this well-worn perspective, the architect perceives and imagines himself as architect of the world, human image of God the Creator” (p. 98).
- 19.
For L., participation does not help in this process: it is an ‘obsession’ (of the experts, technicians and administrators), one of the more explicitly criticized concepts: “In practice. the ideology of participation enables us to have the acquiescence of interested and concerned people at a small price. After a more or less elaborate pretence at information and social activity, they return to their tranquil passivity and retirement. Is it not clear that real and active participation already has a name? It is called self-management. Which poses other problems (p. 145).
- 20.
I proposed this concept to define landscape—in Pizzo, 2008: it had been an object of a profitable discussion with Luigi Mazza, and we eventually agreed that the same concept should be applied to the city—and now, after many years, I can still appreciate that very stimulating conversation.
- 21.
This is why, using Lefebvre to describe phenomenon without explanations is to me a betrayal of Lefebvre’s own thought.
- 22.
All Lefebvre quotations are taken from: Lefebvre, H., Kofman, E., & Lebas, E. (1996). Writings on cities (Vol. 63). Oxford: Blackwell.
References
All Lefebvre quotations are taken from: Lefebvre, H., Kofman, E., & Lebas, E. (1996). Writings on cities (Vol. 63). Oxford: Blackwell.
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Pizzo, B. (2022). Le droit à la ville, 1968: Reading Lefebvre’s The Right to the City in Planning Perspective. In: Perrone, C. (eds) Critical Planning and Design. The Urban Book Series. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-93107-0_18
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