THE RIGHT TO THE CITY AND THE BUILDING OF A METAGEOGRAPHY

Abstract

This essay is built upon the following thesis: today, urban citizens see and live the production of the city as an external fact. This is revealed by the fragmentation of urban practices, by the development of private property, by the standardization of political power and by the ever-increasing reproduction needs of the capital cycle. All these processes negate urban life. Twenty-first century urbanization is characterized by the extension and deepening of the contradiction between the production of social space and its private appropriation; as a result, alienation has been updated in the modern world. The paper emphasizes the importance of the struggles for the right to the city for overcoming alienation. As an analytical category, the right to the city sheds light on the importance of the future and allows a dialogue with current-day proposals of city management and entrepreneurship; it also points to an alternative possibility, based on everyday life. A metageography is needed for fighting the theorical and practical crises of the city. The ideas presented in this essay are developed in three movements: (1) the production of the city as an external fact; (2) from geography to metageography; and (3) the right to the city.