THE RIGHT TO THE CITY: URBAN PLANNING FOR LIVABILITY

Back to Page Authors: Mengbing Du, Mengxue Zhao, Haeri Joo, Yue Liang, Wei Zhou, Ning Qiu

Keywords: the right to the city, livability, urban planning, big data

Abstract: Livability as a core condition of rights to the city, which is highly valued in modern cities. However, rapid urbanization that of the neoliberal state greasing the wheels of capital accumulation in the form of consumable spaces made it hard to reflect on the nature of the rights. Urban planning has a particularly profound influence on the right to remake ourselves by creating different kinds of urban space. In this article, the authors join the discussion on the right to the city in terms of two questions: 1) what is the right to the city? 2) how to exercise this right? Accordingly, first, we argue that livability is conceptualized as the right to the city by establishing a conceptual framework. Second, as an excise of this right, urban planning calls for an urgent need for an approach in realizing livability in the urban design process. To illustrate the application of the approach, finally, this article adopted a case study of 300 urban streets in Suqian, China as an attempt to exercise the right of the city.