Something Can Be Done! — A Report on the

Volume 33.4 December 2009 1067–72
International Journal of Urban and Regional Research
DOI:10.1111/j.1468-2427.2009.00931.x
Something Can Be Done! — A Report
on the Conference ‘Right to the City.
Prospects for Critical Urban Theory
and Practice’, Berlin November 2008
ijur_931 1067..1072
SABINE HORLITZ and ANNE VOGELPOHL
Rarely has the demand ‘to get rid of the system’ been spoken as such a self-evident truth
as it was during the plenary session of the three-day conference honoring the 80th
birthday of Peter Marcuse. This extraordinary event — organized by Margit Mayer, Neil
Brenner and Peter Marcuse in cooperation with the Center for Metropolitan Studies, TU
Berlin — questioned the legacies and prospects of critical urban theory and reflected on
its relevance within the context of present urban restructuring. What made this meeting
so special was its strong emphasis on the links between academic work and current urban
struggles, in particular with regard to the emerging ‘Right to the City’ (RttC) movement.1
From 6 to 8 November 2008, roughly 250 participants, of whom 30 were speakers, came
together to discuss conditions and possible strategies within the realm of critical urban
theory, planning and activism.
Rather than summarizing all of the conference contributions, this report focuses on
key issues that were discussed throughout the conference.2 It begins by synthesizing the
conceptual considerations of the relation between critical theory and emancipatory
practices. Clarifying this often difficult relationship was one of the conference’s main
concerns. Most of the presenters tried not only to analyze different trajectories of links
between theory and practice, but also to highlight reciprocal forms of communication
and mutual enhancements. This report addresses the diverse standpoints concerning the
roles that critical theoretical work might play for actual change, both within the legacy
of critical urban theory and the RttC movement. It then highlights some specific
examples linking theory and practice with a focus on the conference’s major themes. In
particular, this report stresses the notion of the city and why and how the urban as a
concept is crucial here. It addresses questions of scale and, strongly related, considers the
issue of power relations and possible depoliticizations of the RttC claims.
The urban: the actual and the possible
The urban has gained a new relevance in addressing societal injustices within the last
months. Recent events — the election of Barack Obama and the foundation of a new
‘White House Office of Urban Affairs’ on the one hand, the current real estate and
financial crisis with its various bailouts on the other — gave this conference a distinct
urgency. The destabilizing effects of the crisis and the decreasing legitimation of the
1 See http://www.righttothecity.org (accessed 2 November 2009).
2 For the full conference program, more details on the speakers and audio documentation please visit
www.metropolitanstudies.de and search for ‘Veranstaltung’, ‘Right to the City’.
© 2009 The Authors. Journal Compilation © 2009 Joint Editors and Blackwell Publishing Ltd. Published by Blackwell
Publishing. 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK and 350 Main St, Malden, MA 02148, USA
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Debate
neoliberal model coincide with urban politics’ growing relevance — a situation that may
open up new possibilities for bringing about the promised societal change through
critical urban thinking and action. Or, as Gihan Perera, a member of the Right to the City
Alliance put it: ‘There are cracks in neoliberalism that we have to take advantage
of . . . We have one to three years till the next 20 years of policy are going to be set’. He
takes the RttC as a slogan and working title that not only provides a new focus for
framing various urban struggles, but that also allows analysis and agency to be combined.
Here, the twofold dimension of the urban as both the actual (the concrete historical
condition) and the possible (the envisioned future) comes into play. Cities are the sites of
struggle for emancipatory paths of justice, citizenship or empowerment, where people
organize for concrete rights to the city in terms of housing, gender and race issues as well
as political participation. But beyond the urban as an element of actual politics it also
indicates the possible: the urban society as utopian horizon of those struggles. This
notion of the urban as upcoming society goes back to Henri Lefebvre, who coined the
term ‘right to the city’ in the late 1960s. Although they were rarely mentioned explicitly
during the conference, his ideas served as an intellectual framework for a possible
societal change. In particular, Peter Marcuse and David Harvey stressed Lefebvre’s
notion of the ‘right to the city’ as a collective right, one that can only be fulfilled through
collective action and that demands solidarity and various alliances between different
people or groups and their respective tasks and struggles. This envisioned urban — one
that produces legal, economic, social and environmental justice as well as new
possibilities for lived experiences — is fundamentally different from the existing one: it
gathers difference simultaneously, requiring the reconciliation of both the collective and
individual singularities. Thus, the RttC has to be understood societally and is not limited
to the actual city itself. It aims at the ‘urban society [that] has a logic different from that
of merchandise. It is another world. The urban is based on use value’ (Lefebvre, 1996:
131).
The role of critical urban theory
It is in this process of struggling for another city that critical urban theory becomes
crucial, as Peter Marcuse pointed out by investigating the conditions, possibilities and
targets of such actions. Yet when theory’s function and its relation to action were
specified, rather different conceptual standpoints were raised during the conference:
What could be the benefits of theory for concrete actions? Who might be possible
subjects of a — to put it in Lefebvrian words — revolutionary production of space? Neil
Brenner, summarizing the Frankfurt School argument, presented the strongest ‘theory is
theory’ viewpoint, that insists upon a critical distance between theoretical reasoning and
the realm of practice. Central to this thought was the notion of theory based on
abstraction. This abstraction is enabled by specific historical conditions and can,
therefore, only be oriented towards these conditions. Critical theory rejects instrumental
reasoning and related modes of knowledge production. It neither implies visions of a
specific future nor directions for social developments. Thus, theory cannot strive for
developing ‘how-to style guidebooks for social movements’. It can, however, inform
social actors about specific historic conditions and thereby develop critical knowledge
about contemporary society. It becomes critical in diagnosing society’s and capitalism’s
contradictory character and — analogous to Lefebvre’s conception of the urban — the
disjuncture between the actual and the possible to ‘excavate and advocate the
emancipatory possibilities unleashed by this very system’. Referring to Herbert Marcuse,
a member of the Frankfurt School, Neil Brenner said: ‘It is only in a world in which
revolutionary social changes were occurring, [that] critical theory would effectively be
dissolved, not in its critical orientation, but as theory, as abstraction. It would become
concrete practice’.
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Compared to this holistic Frankfurt School approach, the conference’s most prevalent
approach to the function of theory can be described as an ‘analytical framework’, often
focused on the capitalist relation between contemporary economic and socio-spatial
processes. Jamie Peck and Nik Theodore’s exploration of the current crisis and its impact
on the perception of neoliberalization is exemplary for that strand of theorizing. They
stated that even though neoliberalism might be ‘dead as an ideology’, it is ‘living as a
project’, and more: crises and related innovations even shape the form and make way for
neoliberal restructuring strategies. This kind of theoretical approach focuses mainly on
analysis. It is concerned with understanding and does not focus on communicating the
results to activists or their organizations. Yet another way of understanding theory
beyond abstraction and mere analyses came up during the conference: Jacqueline Leavitt
pointed out that the conceptual distance between theoretical abstraction and concrete
practice, so strongly emphasized by the Frankfurt School, is partly overcome by ‘activist
intellectuals’. In her view, those organizers of, for example, community action, already
resolve this dichotomy in their work. They use theories of social change to a greater or
lesser extent for formulating actions. As for the role of academics, who are, in her
definition, not ‘activist intellectuals’ but primarily producers of theory, she demands that
academics and their theory production illuminate — and possibly guide — practice.
Leavitt pointed to serious obstacles in this process that are rarely addressed in those
debates. Referring to the academics involved in the Los Angeles RttC movement she
pinpointed (as the only one actually at the conference!) the inherent hierarchies between
academics and activists, and the concrete barriers to communication between them —
different uses of language as well as different ways of knowing, and, on the academics’
part, a lack of understanding of the very dilemmas of practice. In a similar vein, Peter
Marcuse argued against confining theory to mainly reflecting on society — and thereby
against the notion of critical theory as solely abstract. Referring to his own engagement
in claiming rights to housing as an important part of the RttC, Peter Marcuse said ‘the
abstract character lacks the determination of social agents’. Theory has to ‘open the
door’ to discussions of further progress and social change, too. For this task he
formulated a catchy motto that was often recited during the conference. He synthesized
the process in three steps. First ‘expose!’ (which means analyzing what is going on and
getting to the bottom of it), second ‘propose!’ (in other words, take a position, suggest an
agenda and formulate a concrete proposal) and third ‘politicize!’ (that is, do not simply
talk, but face the organizational and political implications, the weak points of
problematic conditions and identify the leverage points that can be addressed).
Scalar perspectives within urban struggles
Based on those theoretical reflections, the course of the debate was increasingly linked
to exemplifying resistance against dominating neoliberal urban restructurings:
gentrification, displacements and the respective political ideologies. Those tasks were
clearly defined as central for people’s lives and for criticizing current injustices.
However, it was less clear what concrete political actions it might be appropriate to
pursue. In this regard, various speakers predominantly addressed the question of scale —
and it turned out to be a key issue for mutual learning processes between theorists and
activists. Three aspects of scalar questions were considered: the possible ‘local trap’ of
local urban actions; the spatial arrangement of neoliberal forces; and, more generally, the
appropriate scale for taking up emancipative struggles. Frequent reminders about taking
scale seriously were answered differently with respect to these three aspects. Jacqueline
Leavitt objected to the repeatedly mentioned danger of a ‘local trap’ for activist struggles
— understood as the limited scope of local actions and missing linkages to global
problems. Demonstrating that this argument is a rather ignorant stereotype, she indicated
that the global–local connection is always present when topics like migration are at issue.
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It is both part of the migrants’ individual experiences and also of their collective
organization. In this regard, their practical work also serves to inform and bring forth
theories of scale. Contrary to some academic preconceptions, their actions are connected
rather than isolated or limited. This remark links to the second aspect of scale, the spatial
arrangement of neoliberal forces. Peck and Theodore mainly reflected on this with their
perspective of the ‘interurban’. They examined the contradictory processes of
globalization, fragmentation and reterritorialization as forms of an internationally
interrelated neoliberal urbanism: neoliberalization is not just a question of (national)
city–state relations, but also shapes relations between cities all over the world. For them,
cities are the actual sites of struggles, but they reminded us that activism must be
interurban in order to mutually learn techniques for action and types of social policy.
This leads to the third scalar aspect to be mentioned here, the appropriate entry-point
into political struggles. Roland Roth put this question and emphasized the high
relevance of the local or even personal level. Although he clearly insisted that a recipe
for concrete political forms cannot exist, he pointed out, by building on the theories of
the Frankfurt School and Lefebvre, that small disruptions within everyday practices
may lead to major changes. In times when demonstrations, strikes and social
movements have become an integral part of common politics, it must be small, but
broadly dispersed changes within the everyday sphere of production and reproduction
that can initiate a general transformation. ‘The socio-political change has to be
accompanied with the personal’, he said. ‘The radical change is related to gradual
changes’. Yet, he added, in order to prevent the cooptation of new spatial practices
through capitalist structures, one has to be more aware of the adaptive character of
capitalism itself. With the scalar perspective Roland Roth pointed here to the concrete
mode of exercising power and of maintaining power relations. These ever renewing
capacities of the capitalist system were addressed by various presentations. However,
globalization processes can also take social movements one step further. Margit Mayer,
for example, claimed that neoliberal mechanisms become clearer and more efficiently
opposable when their connectivity gets obvious. Particularly since the effects of
globalization become manifest in cities, movements struggling locally can connect to
similar struggles in all other kinds of places in the world. A globalized urbanization can
therefore also be strategically used in local actions. For her, the question should not be
whether things are more politicized on the local or global level, but how to unhinge
neoliberal structures more substantially. An essential part of such an effort is the
demystification of neoliberal concepts which only appear to be just (like civil society or
welfare), but whose underlying ideologies can be exposed.
Exposing dominant ideologies — opposing power relations
Many presenters highlighted the question of power by exposing the special-interest
character of neoliberal urban politics. Criticism was aimed at the mode of operation of
the state or planning, but also at the ideological character of their respective reasoning.
Justus Uitermark most explicitly exposed the ideological character of governmental
programs that seem on the surface to support just developments. He deconstructed
positively laden notions such as integration, citizenship or livability — the very notions
that are often associated with ‘empowerment’ from below — as ideological masks for
legitimizing social control. For example, qualities like integration and livability are
measured with indicators that problematize minorities or low-income households.
Supposedly so oriented towards justice and equity, ‘integrative programs’ treat people as
anything but equal. Under the ‘banner of integration’ they actually hinder justice and
even destroy local civil society and possible resistances by misusing the idea of justice
to ‘reflect the interests of government actors rather than residents’. Analyzing this mode
of maintaining and assuring dominant power relations, he pointed towards the exclusive
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character of current urban politics in general. With a similar direction of impact, though
focusing on the role of the state and its relation to localities, Neil Smith argued that the
state supports capitalism by backing up its inherent social reproduction, for example, by
fostering certain types of urbanization through housing and infrastructure subsidies. In
his view one of the alternatives could be a democratized state that aims at the ‘reformist
city of public housing, public transport, and public responsibility for the built
environment’. This ‘reformist paradigm’, consisting of the basic idea of use value and
more concretely of the city for residential living, is, according to him, the core of the
possible urban future.
Oren Yiftachel again took up the task of exposing the ideology of urban politics by
exploring the role of planning in more detail. He emphasized that all new metropolises
are confronted by illegal, unplanned developments — not only from below (like slums
and squatters), but also from above from local elites (like sites for future investments or
army bases). He calls those ‘gray spaces’: between the ‘lightness of legality’ and the
‘darkness of eviction and destruction’. Attempts by politicians and planners to keep those
spaces outside of plans and maps are also meant to deny certain residents full political
participation on the one hand, and to cloak the elite developers’ responsibility on the
other. So, planning is one means of putting ideologies into practice. A hegemonic mode
of planning facilitates the production of a ‘creeping apartheid’ with ‘gray spacing’ that
produces structural injustices, criminalizes the residents living in those neighborhoods,
and hinders people’s participation in producing the urban. However, for Yiftachel
planning can also be an emancipatory field of practice, when it starts from ‘truly
engag[ing] with the local and global ramifications of an emerging urban order’ — for
instance, by planning alternative citizenship that could release excluded communities
from their colonial entrapment. Thus planning can also push forward actual RttC
struggles.
Claiming the right to the city — a US example
Finally, the contributions of Jon Liss and Gihan Perera, representatives of the RttC
network, put a stronger focus on the RttC as a frame for action in order to re-emphasize
leftist analysis as an umbrella to organize and bring together different topics ranging
from housing or treatment of prisoners to education. With regard to strategies for their
actions and his self-conception as organizer, Gihan Perera highlighted two points for
fostering change: first, to address social tasks such as questions of power, not only moral
questions; and second, to counter neoliberalism understood as accumulation by
dispossession in order to ‘accumulate the dispossessed, to accumulate [them] into a
movement and a social force that would have agency to lead a movement around the right
to the city’. Though straightforwardly political in his critique of capitalist politics
of distribution and in insisting that space — and its material dimension of housing and
land — has to be produced ‘from people for people’s uses and not for capitalist surplus
generation’, his focus is nevertheless on the feasibility of radical politics. Here, the RttC
network serves as a means of organizing and a frame for gathering intersectional, often
fragmented urban campaigns and struggles towards a movement orientation.
Furthermore, it is also helpful in gaining broader social support for leftist politics
because it offers a ‘proactive vision around a working class strategy for working class
communities that wasn’t just about stopping something’. So it helps to escape the
dominant attitude towards activists of being ‘just the haters opposing anything good’.
After having presented his ‘five easy steps for organizing’, Perera directly addressed the
relation between theory and practice, making proposals for concrete collaboration in
educational projects. Some of them were a joint ‘Right to the City practice school’ or,
with reference to David Harvey, a ‘Q and A website’. Additionally, Perera stressed that
the academics also have to get organized themselves.
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The Berlin Conference — ﬁnal remarks
So what might the RttC movement finally bring about? How far can it be pushed and
what would be the usefulness of theory or academic work therein? Clarifying the process
of asserting and implementing these rights to the city might be helpful. Due to the
collective character of those rights they cannot merely be negotiated in an abstract way
by a group of people, however smart they might be, and then put into practice on the
ground. Those rights have to be commonly developed. Moreover, due to their nonuniversal character, or, more precisely, because they have to be understood as rights
specifically for those formerly deprived of full rights, they will not simply be gained or
recognized as entitlements but have to remain contested. This contestation of collective
rights, however, is not a claim to plain access to what already exists. Starting from
claiming rights and shaping the city according to people’s needs, from fighting for land
and housing free of market speculation and for urban spaces beyond boundaries of
gender, race or age, the RttC movement clearly heads towards a totally different urban.
Its concept bears not only a critique of the actual but targets the possible. Thus, this
movement has the potential to fundamentally reconfigure the central categories on which
a capitalist society is based. Yet there is also the trap of watering down the RttC
movement’s targets that both Margit Mayer and Peter Marcuse addressed by
emphasizing the importance of being aware not only of the repressive aspects of
neoliberalism but also of its capacity to hijack and incorporate formerly emancipatory
ideas. At the very end of the conference they underlined that it is crucial to uphold a
radical definition and self-conception in order to prevent the dilution of the RttC
movement through inclusion or reconciliation. The same, of course, has to be called for
in the academic realm. Here, the conference renewed the awareness of academic scholars
that they should rethink their position, the function and relevance of their analytical
work, and search for possible entries to support emancipatory transformations of the
current society. The conference clearly showed, especially during the final discussion, a
common urge and wish of the participants to render their work political. But it also made
obvious an uncertainty about doing so, an insufficiency of experience in this area, as well
as the various obstacles arising from the very functioning of academic business itself.
Thus, the demand after the three days was to keep the process going and to provoke
political debates and action where they have not yet evolved. Continuing this might be
the future task for further conferences and meetings.
Sabine Horlitz ([email protected]) and Anne Vogelpohl
([email protected]), Center for Metropolitan Studies (CMS), TU
Berlin, Ernst-Reuter-Platz 7, TEL 3-0, 10587 Berlin, Germany.
Reference
Lefebvre, H. (1996) Writings on cities E.
Kofman and E. Lebas (eds.), Blackwell,
Oxford.
International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 33.4
© 2009 The Authors. Journal Compilation © 2009 Joint Editors and Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

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