An explanation of the concept " the right to the city" on the basis of Henri Lefebvre's thinking system

The concept “the right to the city” has been widely used these days in such a way that its meaning has become apparent to everyone. However, what has been less dealt with is its nature and origin and more importantly its link to radical democracy. Public acceptance, both at global level and in Iran, of this concept in parallel with the lack of a critical survey on it involves the risk that its central issue may be subject to distortion. As a result, thorough study of the concept seems necessary. For this reason, in this essay, by reviewing Henri Lefebvre’s ideas, the source of the idea of the right to the city, we aim to provide a general picture of concepts by which the concept of the right to the city can just find its full meaning. Therefore, we attempt to lower the possibility of reductionism in dealing with the concept “the right to the city”, and provide a roughly accurate image of it. To this end, we address the dialectic from the viewpoint of Lefebvre and its link to concepts such as praxis and perfect human. Because it seems the dialectic method is peculiar to Lefebvre, the chain linking his ideas. In what follows, we address the concept of alienation; the concept that plays a determining role in Lefebvre’s ideas as he found it a daily experience of which the criticism involves the criticism of daily life, criticism of alienation like daily experience bestows a fundamental role on daily life. According to this, revolution and social change should not be sought simply at state or economic level any longer. Thus, revolution turns into a revolution in daily life. Afterward, we arrive at the most central concept in explaining the right to the city; production of space; what makes Lefebvre develop the right to the city into right to space. Having provided a general picture of Lefebvre’s thinking set, we direct our focus toward the concept of the right to the city more thoroughly so that we look at it with a more profound view.