Evaluate David Harvey’s Suggestion That We Should Adopt the Right to the City as Both a Working Slogan and Political Idea.

In “New Axioms for Reading the Landscape: Paying Attention to Political Economy and Social Justice,” Don Mitchell incorporates old ideas from Peirce F. Lewis’s original “Axioms for Reading the Landscape.” At the same time, Mitchell includes new ideas into his axioms. In Axiom 1, he explains that “the landscape is not produced through ‘our unwitting autobiography’ (as Lewis describes it), but as an act of (social, not individual) will” (2007, 34). He also stresses the idea that landscape should be produced as a commodity. In contrast, Neil Smith explains the main causes behind gentrification. Smith explains how gentrification happens through a process which he calls “rent gap” (1979, 545). In gentrification, the landscape is a commodity because it loses and gains monetary value through disinvestment and investment.

Well known in cities at the time were the City Beautiful movement and the city practical, however, social issues were merely pushed to the side. Wirka (1996) explains that “both are undoubtedly important movements in the history of planning” (p. 57), however, she goes on

Even though mobility, utopias and privatization have many similarities, do they work together in urban space? When I first read the words I thought that they have a lot in common so they must all interact. Once I thought about the words individually I realized that they have some ideas that could also clash despite the fact that they do all have connections. To decide these connections we must understand what mobility, utopia and privatization is first.

In Jeff Ferrell’s “Tearing Down the Streets Adventures in Urban Anarchy”, it introduced themes of image of the city, rights to the city, and given different examples of anarchist activities in urban environments. In my opinion, I enjoyed the book’s narratives on urban cities trying to clean the streets of unwanted acts and people; along with the collective movements attempting to retake the open space and streets. However, Ferrell’s actions in his daily life to retake space are questionable. Ferrell considers cities are changing their images by undergoing “Disneyfication” (Ferrell, 2001, p. 8) with unnecessary security, planned entertainment and making it ‘beautiful’. Ultimately, it forces authorities to restrict and isolate unwanted acts

Cities are generators of economic life and source of changes in the world. Thereby, Jane Jacobs in her book The Death and Life of Great American Cities puts into relief the role of cities on the social and economic levels, while denouncing the disastrous consequences of urban renewal programs. To that extent, in chapters 2 and 3, she discusses "The Uses of Sidewalks”, arguing that over all people need safety and trust in their city. Therefore, first she claims the necessity of keeping streets and sidewalks safe because they are the “vital organs” of cities (29). Secondly, she argues that the functioning of cities should be organized in order to foster human interaction in which “casual public

The urban space not only reflects the profound changes in people's lives, but also reveals many social problems. Different element which includes the building, neighborhoods, housing and transportation create a sense of spatial relationship and emphasize the importance of equality in opportunity and comprehensive development. According to the article of “Why Spatial, Why Justice, Why LA”, Edward W. Soja defines the concept of “spatiality justice” as, “an integral and formative component of justice itself, a vital part of how justice and injustice are socially constructed and evolve over time” (1, Soja). In this way, he illustrates that the spatial justice becomes fundamentally important in our society and the struggle over geography is

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Scott’s theory of authoritarian high modernism has several components that seek to explain the conditions of state control and organization over its citizens. In order to efficiently govern the masses, authorities need to create legible societies. The means to create this legibility depends on the standardization and thus often the destruction of individually unique spaces. Additionally, states must have the authoritative strength to coerce change. For example, Le Corbusier’s urban plans ignored the grey areas of urban life or the spaces that individuals create organically.

belongs in the city that the ideal can be achieved. What this means to politics in the

What is an urban revolution? Why is it important for cities to have one? What are that factors that cause these revolutions? In the articles The Urban Revolution by V.Gordon Childe, The Right to The City by David Harvey and lastly, What Type of Public Transit for What Type of Public? by Kafui A. Attoh, displays the different ways the residents in a city react to the social inequality and human rights.

“The best that can be said of the conception is that it did afford a chance to experiment with some physical and social planning theories which did not pan out. “ This quote reflects Jane Jacob’s philosophical ideas in an attempt to criticize the social housing’s design approach and its associated urban planning in modern era. “The physical and social theories” outlines the urban planning idea of social housing (Utopian idea) and according to Jane’s statement, such experiment of these theories were deem to be unsuccessful. It is inevitably certain to some extent that a provocative statement towards modern era social housing approaches would hold true due to the minimal success the plans brought to the city, such as solving the working class commendations temporarily. Nevertheless, it is a failure to deliver long-standing social improvements corresponded with the increasing suspicion of modernism, one cannot simply attribute ill fate to its “innovative physical features” (As Jane said, the Utopian and Utopia), but should rather considered a range of other elements in the larger aspect of society: factors such as difficulty of racial integration, problems of financing and management, lack of bridging between architecture and planning, as well as the increasing preference of suburban lifestyle from the rising mid class. These problems reflected evidently in some stereotypes of social housing communities built in the modern era such as Pruitt-Igoe, sunny side Gardens, Paul

In Harvey’s article, we delve into both the systematic creation of cities via the Marxist lense, as well as the concept of ownership of the by-products of using cities for capital gains and social welfare as a whole.

The process of people moving into cities, which is called urbanisation, was happening around the world in past decades. It causes cities to have more labourers and resources than before. This makes a big contribution to the social development of cities. Thanks to these social developments, public services are becoming better in these areas. Citizens can enjoy a better life by access these public services such as better medical care, more education resources and well-built transport. It means an equitable society can be created. An equitable society means citizens can have more opportunities to access social resources and to live a better life. This essay will argue that

The case for the ideal city has been discussed from the Socrates era to the modern day. People have made many suggestions on how to form an ideal city where there will be balance, justice, rights, and equality; but not many are logistic. Plato argues in his Republic that to form a just city, there must be order, structure, and strict roles; a stark opposite to a modern-day festival that takes place in the middle of a Nevada desert called Burning Man. This festival promotes a society in which there are no strict roles; what people bring to the week-long event is what they can give in exchange for other items they may need. This festival provides a platform in which creativity along with expression are the forefront to its’ existence. Plato’s Republic defines justice as a tension between justice and equality, furthermore where each part of the whole does the job which is appropriate to it. Burning Man defines freedom through allowing a radically different sense of inclusion, giving, and finding one’s inner self through a community that is supportive as well as open. The more ideal city is Plato’s Republic as it provides structure, order, and security; all things humans thrive on for survival.

In this book Lynch defines that performance of the city can be measured by reference to its spatial form. But the quality of a place is depends upon combined effect of place and the society which occupies that place. Here Lynch sets up new dimensions for performance in his own criteria. Author also expresses his approach on size of the city, conservation and growth, planning practices and utopian models. The dimensions which are demonstrated in this book may not be fully perfect but of course they combine all social values as well as physical values. Lynch believed that these described dimensions must cover all features of all forms of the settlements and all these dimensions should be usable where values are different.