David Harvey The Right To Remake Ourselves Analysis

When David Harvey asserts, “The right to remake ourselves by creating a qualitatively different kind of urban sociality is one of the most precious of all human rights,” he presents a conundrum. One that insistently tells us that access to the city in order to create the type of utopian urban space is a fundamental right that must be shared amongst all people regardless of their social standing. He raises the proverbial question about ownership over urban space and the impact it has on those who live within it. Ideally, those who identify a geographical space as their home place typically claim proprietorship over it and often carry a sense of place-pride; gratification towards a city rooted in local cosmopolitanism that recognizes the city

For this paper, I will draw upon two key characteristics that present what I believe is needed to begin the construction of a just city. First, drawing upon scholarship from Leonie Sandercock, in order to produce a just city, it must be politically neutral (Sandercock). David Harvey details how elites who manage municipalities place their political interests over the greater good of the city and its citizens, which disrupts the needed access for some residents to ‘remake

Drawing upon Lily Song’s scholarship when she states, “…race appears a secondary issue that may have cultural and political significance but is essentially a divisive mechanism that stymies the redistributive agendas or economic programs of class-based movements (Song p. 156).” To expound on this point, black and brown communities have been placed at an economic disadvantage connected to racialized discriminatory practices that have created hyper-segregated spaces with momentous challenges. Therefore, using a ‘one size fits all’ model to combat the crises within these spaces is not practical because it ignores the explicit role that race has played in the subjugation of communities of color. For example, taking a neo-pragmatic approach to eradicating these challenges by utilizing black and brown urban planners who have a greater understanding of the racial implications faced by these disadvantaged groups is a more sensible way to avoid trivializing the historical inequalities faced by people of color. To expand further, Rashad Shabazz details how black masculinity is specifically performed through prison and carceral spaces separate from how white masculinity is executed (Shabazz). Instead of approaching the problems faced by black males that present masculinity through a lens of white masculinity, a deeper analysis could connect how prison culture and the