The Right to the City: The Struggle for Social Justice and Public Space

Don Mitchell emphasizes that the struggle to exist in public spaces and expand the boundaries of publicness cannot be separated from the concepts of democracy and social justice. In this context, he masterfully combines historical and spatial analyses to examine the vital relationship between dynamic forms of struggle over public space and social movements.

Mitchell offers new contributions to the concept of the right to the city from a social justice perspective, reinterpreting this concept in favor of the most disadvantaged segments of society by incorporating their narratives and feelings. The author scrutinizes the efforts of different power centers to control public space and the actions of subjects who resist these powers.

He delves into numerous concrete cases, from the labor movements at the beginning of the 20th century to the 1968 uprisings, from the People's Park struggle to the security-oriented approaches that affected cities after 9/11. This work is an important reference for those who contemplate publicness, the city, and social justice.