Del derecho a la vivienda al derecho a la ciudad: ¿De qué derechos hablamos… y con qué derecho?

Abstract

Coined by the french sociologist Henri Lefebvre at the end of the sixties, the concept of « right to the city » has been subject of different interpretations. Originally defined as a the right to a colective apropriation and transformation of the city in a socialist prospect, this right was then reduced to an equal access for eveybody to urban centrality. To-day, converted into a mere demagogic slogan, it accompanies the setting up of «citizen participation» mecanisms in order to daub with a democatic veneer urban policies led by and for oligarchies. Perhaps the time has come to put the right to the city back within the framework of a fight against the capitalist urbanization, as the english geographer Davis Harvey proposes, no in the name of «spatial justice», a moralizing and relativist notion, but in order to put an end to the socio-spatial inequalities and the sistem which produces them.