Henri Lefebvre's Exploration Of Urbanization In France
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In 1968, Henri Lefebvre introduced his book “Le droit à la ville” based on his investigation of urbanization in France in the wake of the Industrial Revolution until the 1960s (Brenner, N. et. al., 2012). Like most of the Western industrialized nations, France –at that time– was marked by expansion of production. This expansion was accompanied by massive migration from rural to urban areas, which led to a fundamental change in spatial structures. In 1804, Napoleon Bonaparte made himself emperor of France and set out on an ambitious project to make Paris the most beautiful city in the world. It was during Bonaparte’s reign that the Arc de Triumphe and many other monuments were built. In 1851, Bonaparte’s nephew, Napoleon III, assumed the role as the country’s emperor and by 1852 he had hired Baron Haussmann…show more content… According to Lefebvre, the Right to the City (Lefebvre, H., 1968): should modify, concretize and make more practical the rights of the citizen as an urban dweller (citadin) and user of multiple services. It would affirm, on the one hand, the right of users to make known their ideas on the space [..]; it would also cover the right to the use of the centre, a privileged place, instead of being dispersed and stuck into ghettos.
Lefebvre’s Right to the City encompasses two different rights for urban inhabitants: the right to participation and the right to appropriation. The right to participation contends that inhabitants should play a central role in any decision that contributes to the production of urban space, which are usually conducted by power, capital or other institutions. This concept encompasses those who are usually expelled from decision-making procedures such as homeless people and slum dwellers. It is worth mentioning that, inhabitants participation can be represented in two forms (Magdy, H.,