From the right to the city to the right of the places

Abstract

A central claim to urban social movements is associated with the right to the city, proposed by Henri Lefebvre, as part of the discussions and projections about human and fundamental rights. However, by popularizing the right to the city, it becomes subjected to the risk of capture by governments and real estate sectors, tarnishing its claiming potential. Such risks impose a theoretical and conceptual redefinition. This article, therefore, proposes a new approach: from the right to the city to the right of the places, this is, of thinking and conceiving cities as places, through the horizontalities on life’s ground. It is's about articulating a right that is relational between the world and the local, but horizontal in its prospects as a right to project the present and the tomorrow. A right of places, but realized in places; and in them we doit is possible to find the possibilities for the projects of collective actors subjects and for the rights of the slow man to be territorialized.