1994 / 2158
1994
country hotels. This return to nature in a modern life is merely apparent, if it is enjoyed following the
same rules as in the city (mainly, as in a suburb) and with a way of life that is not truly urban or rural.
This is not a claim to leave the cities, in the opposite. As Léfèbvre (1968) says, this artificial “return
to nature” is in itself a corruption of the right to the city and a symptom of a degraded city. In other
words, a healthy life urban life should offer the access to nature as one of its roles; if that is not
happening, it is not an intrinsic city problem, but a deficiency that should be fixed. Moreover, a
real
immersion in a natural environment would also imply in the necessary abandonment of a life as a
citizen, with rights and rules towards society, what on a large scale would lead to the end of cities –
what would lead to the loss of developments that were only possible because of them. Therefore,
the right to a sustainable city is something to be looked (and fought) for inside the urban life, and it
is in this way that the environmental impact of cities can be effectively reduced and the planet as a
whole made sustainable.
7. CONCLUSIONS
In many situations today, we can see how dwellers deal with the crisis of the city, conscious or not
of their actions. Socially, several groups seek to restore (even if precariously sometimes) the spaces
for meeting, let that be through the creation of new spaces or through the reoccupation (sometimes
by force) of previously lost spaces. “At the same time a place for meetings, convergence of
communications and information, the urban becomes that it always was: place of desire, permanent
imbalance, head of dissolution of normalities and constraints, moment of the playful and the
unpredictable.” (LÉFÈBVRE, 1968).
A living city must allow its dwellers the freedom to act, product and interfere in the urban space, not
relegate them to passive users. When people are restricted to their private spaces, the popular action
becomes much more limited. The appropriation does not have to do to property, but to use, and it
needs to happen collectively as a condition to the individual appropriation (DELORENZO, 2011).
However, the social movements from the urban and suburban areas usually have no connection to
each other. But if in some way that managed to unite themselves, what should they demand?
According to Harvey (2013), the answer is simple: a greater democratic control over the production
and use of profit. Real estate speculation is one of the main challenges to be faced in any modern
city and cannot be won solely with public policies, but acting directly on the economic system that
stimulates it. Look to the Brazilian case that, since 2001, has approved the City Statute, after years
of social pressure, but until today has not put this Statute to significant effective use. Citing Harvey,
we can argue this is because the social movements have not yet converged to the single objective
of gaining more control over the uses of money – and even less over the conditions of its production
(HARVEY, 2013).
A step towards the unification of these fights is to adopt the right to the city as a slogan and as a
political ideal, precisely because it raises the question of who commands the relation between
urbanization and economic system. The democratization of this right and the building of a wide social
movement to assert its will are imperative so that the dispossessed can reclaim the control that for
long has been denied and to implement new forms of urbanization. “Léfèbvre was right in insist that
the revolution must be urban in the widest sense; in the contrary, it won’t be nothing” (HARVEY,
2013).
The right to the city is, however, a hard right and that demands quite some time to be exerted. The
conscious production of space, let be perceived or lived, is an arduous task, almost like a second
job. Not all citizens are willing to do that, and it is not surprising why it is ignored so many times.
Notwithstanding, so that the now underprivileged citizens can start to live in a pleasant, accessible