Post-pandemic Urbanis

177 spaces—spaces that are open to the public and that can be used for
free, which are the very spaces that have established themselves
during the pandemic as absolutely essential places of recreation
and recentering—are slowly but steadily disappearing from the
scene. These “paid spaces,” however, are not just proliferating.
They also have a habit of crowding out the other spaces. All this
happens not infrequently under the premise of “upgrading”—a
seemingly innocent word for the thoroughly violent processes that
come with it, but which can less and less often be disguised with
these euphemistic terms. That is to say: urban structures change—
sometimes slowly and insidiously, sometimes quite rapidly. And the
space for those who possess little is dwindling. “Justice is something
else!” the choir now declaims.
One objection here, perhaps justified, is that not everything was
rosy in the past either. That the processes described here are not
new. That today displacement may be called gentrification, but that
nothing else has changed. And yes, that may be so. But the resistance
that is stirring, the protests, which are massive and getting
louder—these are special. A city must be made differently. It must
be planned, designed, built, and managed in such a way that it is
not just luck, favorable circumstances, or financial resources that
determine what lives are possible there. The right to the city must
be absolute.
When we read books on the subject, this right is often tied to
the right to clean water, clean air, housing, adequate sanitation,
mobility, education, healthcare, and democratic participation in
decision-making. Yet as Peter Marcuse argues, this must also be
about social justice, which includes the right to individual justice
but goes far beyond it. 4 We are talking here about the city as a place
(once again referring to Marcuse) for a heterogeneous and complex
society that offers the same opportunities to all. 5
Even today, many who deal with these questions and thoughts
refer to Henri Lefebvre, whose 1968 book about the right to the city
remains so current. 6 At the time, Lefebvre’s work helped formulate
4 See Peter Marcuse, “Whose Right(s) to What City?,” in Cities for People, Not for Profit:
Critical Urban Theory and the Right to the City, ed. Neil Brenner, Peter Marcuse, and
Margit Mayer (New York: Routledge, 2012 [1974]): 41.
5 Ibid.
6 See Henri Lefebvre, Le droit à la ville (Anthropos: Paris, 1968).