right to the city-implications for architecture
DESCRIPTION
by Graeme Bristol, MAIBC, MRAIC Centre for Architecture & Human Rights 231/2 South Sathorn Road, Yannawa, Sathorn, Bangkok 10120 THAILAND mobile phone (Bangkok): 089-1617283 [email protected] www.architecture-humanrights.org 1 INTRODUCTION The Right to the City: Implications for ArchitectureTRANSCRIPT
The Right to the City: Implications for Architecture
by
Graeme Bristol, MAIBC, MRAIC
Centre for Architecture & Human Rights
231/2 South Sathorn Road,
Yannawa, Sathorn,
Bangkok 10120
THAILAND
mobile phone (Bangkok): 089-1617283
www.architecture-humanrights.org
Abstract: Does the right to the city mean anything? Why should such a distinction be made? In addressing
these preliminary questions it is important to look at the facts of the urbanization of the planet and what
that means to those who form that movement to the city. The current draft Charter on the Right to the City
is still in its early stages, but has come from a history of urban struggle, particularly for marginalized groups.
There are implications to such a Charter in our access to the spaces and services of the city. There are also
implications for way we plan city policy and design city infrastructure. If and when such a Charter reaches
a broad level of acceptance there will be implications for the practices of architecture and engineering
and, one might expect, the laws that govern the design professions. This paper will look first at the history
leading to the Charter and then the implications of the Charter on the planning and design of cities.
Black day in July
The streets of motor city now are quiet and serene
But the shapes of gutted buildings
Strike terror to the heart
And you say how did it happen
And you say how did it start
Why cant we all be brothers
Why cant we live in peace
But the hands of the have-nots
Keep falling out of reach
Black Day in July, Gordon Lightfoot, 1968
1 INTRODUCTION
In August of 1965, the Watts suburb of Los Angeles
erupted with violent riots that resulted in 37 deaths,
hundreds injured and millions of dollars of property
damage. It was a far cry from King’s march on
Washington only two summers before. King’s dream
would be deferred once again as riots ensued in
Chicago the following summer, in Newark and Detroit
in 1967 and in many cities across the United States in
1968 after King was assassinated at the age of 39 in
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Memphis. The rest of America – white America – was shocked at the extent of violence and
destruction. Why?
As the fires were burning in Detroit, in July of 1967 President Johnson established the National
Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders (The Kerner Report)1 to determine what happened, its
causes and what measures might be taken to end this urban violence. After much research on
the part of the Commission and many academics subsequently, some of the responses to that
question, ‘Why?’, were:
Police brutality
Political exclusion
poverty
unemployment
housing
Urban renewal
One implication of this list is that the ‘civil rights’ movement was about more than civil rights –
most of this list is concerned with social and economic rights. A quote in a Time magazine article
of 27 August 1965 makes this clear:
“A Southern Negro woman who moved to Los Angeles' Watts district scoffs: "I
always been votin' since I got here. But what has it got me?"”2
Having the right to vote had little effect on access to the services and spaces of the city. It had
little effect on urban land economics or on business investment in a neighbourhood.
Another point that should be made about this list is that the last two items on it relate directly to
architecture, urban planning and design – one of the concerns of this paper.
The fall before the Watts riots, in Berkeley, the
demonstrations organized by the Free Speech
Movement came to a head. These
demonstrations, though quite different in
character and intent, were about more than
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free speech; they were about the appropriation of space for speech (Mitchell, 2003:82).
Both demonstrations and riots continued through the sixties, not only in the United States but
around the world – including the student strike in Paris in 19683 and the student democracy
movement in Thailand in 1973.
More recently, and particularly since the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center in New York
and the Pentagon in Washington, the contested use of space in the city, the purposes that are
considered appropriate, and the control of space are all increasingly the concern of all urban
citizens whether they are defenders of rights or defenders of authority and order4. That control is
exercised through policy, through force, and through design.
In these conflicts, there are two fundamental issues and fundamental frustrations:
Control – who controls the use of space of the city? This tends to be the arena of
demonstrations and the right to use space for dissent
Access – who is excluded from the access to the services and spaces of the city? The
inadequacy of access or the outright exclusion from the services, spaces and economy of
the city can erupt in violent frustration.
In understanding these frustrations, it is important to note that the city is an artificial construct.
Everything in it is our creation. We make our cities in our own image. David Harvey points out:
The right to the city is not merely a right of access to what already exists, but a
right to change it after our heart's desire. We need to be sure we can live with
our own creations (a problem for every planner, architect and utopian thinker).
But the right to remake ourselves by creating a qualitatively different kind of
urban sociality is one of the most precious of all human rights. (Harvey,
2003:939)
That right is being frustrated in many ways – one of which is by acts of design.
It is here that architecture, planning and engineering can frustrate rights. It was during this period
of foment in cities around the world that the American Institute of Architects in 1968 invited
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Whitney Young Jr. , the president of the National Urban League5, to speak to their membership at
the AIA annual convention. The architects of America wanted an answer to that question – Why
are they burning up our cities? Young’s address, no doubt, gave some pause to the audience of
professionals responsible for the cities of America. He said,
". . . you are not a profession that has distinguished itself by your social and civic
contributions to the cause of civil rights, and I am sure this does not come to
you as any shock. You are most distinguished by your thunderous silence and
your complete irrelevance.
(Young, 1968:47)
The post war urban renewal schemes and the Corbusian6 dreams of the modern movement
were taking their toll. While the architects of America were designing more award-winning
projects like Pruitt-Igoe in St. Louis (see Figures 5 & 6) – a set of tower blocks that won awards for
the designer in 1952 and were demolished as being unfit for human habitation in 1972 – that
were destroying existing urban communities throughout American cities, those very communities
were beginning to resist this kind of development. There was a growing link between what
architects were designing and the frustrations of urban communities; a link that related directly
to the abuse of their rights. At that time, students, community organizers, the poor, black, and
other vulnerable groups in cities across the country and around the world were finding their
voices on the streets through people like Young, Martin Luther King, Mario Savio, Daniel Cohn-
Bendit and a host of others. The streets, the plazas, the buildings designed by engineers, planners
and architects had now become the spaces of dissent.
In this paper I want to look briefly at the draft of the Charter on the Right to the City and how it
deals with some of these issues, how such a charter expands on existing rights as described in the
Universal Declaration or the Declaration on the Right to Development, and what implications
such a document might have for the practice of architecture. In doing that, I will first look at
some broad statistics about urban growth in order to argue that the city is the global focus of
development. I will then look at a case study of a community in Bangkok to put a human face
on some of these development forces. In that context the contents of the Charter and its value
can be better defined. As with any document, it is in its application that meaning is given, and
to that end, I will look briefly at some of the implications of the Charter on the practice and
process of designing our cities.
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2 URBANIZATION
Why are cities so important that they should merit a special charter? Why should there be a right
to the city? To address those questions, it is important to see the city, as Harvey points out
above, as entirely human. It is an artificial construct and a collective vision. We make and
remake it. There are two important characteristics that arise in that human fabrication: the
economy of the city and the related process of urbanization.
Urban economy – Like the paperless office, we thought at one time that the city might wither
away. As we thrived in the new cyberspace, the need for real space (office buildings, roads,
parks) would be relegated to history. More and more people in the west were choosing
telecommuting to sitting in a car for hours on end to get to and from the office. Who needs an
office building downtown? Land is too expensive and so is the building. Clearly, though, the city
has not withered away. The urban economy drives the nation-state and they also drive the
global economy (Sassen, 2000:5). The NASA image of the earth at night7 clearly shows where this
economic activity is taking place – the megalopolis or mega-city.
“These regions are home to just 10 percent of total world population, 660 million
people, but produce half of all economic activity, two thirds of world-class
scientific activity and three quarters of global innovations.” (Florida, 2006)
In such economic centres there is also far greater increased inequality. This is borne out by the
following statistical nightmare: there is a growing gap between the rich and the poor. Twenty-
percent of the world’s population consumes 85% of its goods and resources. “There are still 1.2
billion people living in abject poverty on less than $1 a day – 65 percent of them in Asia and 25
percent in Africa, where most live on less than 60 cents a day.” (Rischard, 2002:89-90) Over the
next 25 years the population is expected to increase from 6 to 8 billion with 95% being born in the
developing world, and, as noted above, most will be living in slums and surviving in the informal
economy (Sassen, 2000:124), not the global economy. At the same time, that disparity is a key
factor in the gentrification of the city – a development pressure that pushes the poor to the
periphery of the city and away from its services, jobs, history and community.
Urbanization – People continue to move to cities, in part because of there are greater economic
opportunities there. As they do
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Urbanization of the planet now stands at about 50% of the population, with North
American, Europe and Latin American at about 75% and Africa and Asia at about 40%.
In the next 25 years it is estimated that African and Asian countries will reach over 50%
urbanized population. (UNCHS, 2003)
A second and related fact is that one-sixth of the planet’s population currently lives in
slums. It is estimated that if nothing is done that population will double in the next 25
years. (UNCHS, 2003)
These facts and the projections from them will have a profound effect on our cities, particularly in
Asia and Africa. Rapid urbanization, mainly by the poor, and the doubling of slums to
accommodate this population growth result in our cities being designed, in effect, by the poor.
As a result, many rights outlined in existing UN documents will be obstructed and there will be
other issues arising that are not dealt with in those documents. The following case study on one
community in Bangkok exposes some of these issues.
3 POM MAHAKAN – a case study8
In November of 2002, 7 students from
the architecture program of King
Mongkut's University of Technology
Thonburi began working with a small
community at Pom Mahakan. For
the last 150 years, this community
had been living between the old
wall of the city and the canal, nearly
as long as the ancient wall itself had
been there.
The students spent the first month of
the four-month studio gathering
data and talking with/interviewing the people in the community. In the second month they
consolidated this data into a preliminary program from which they developed a series of
Figure 3 - The old fort with attached city wall. The Golden Mount, a
major tourist attraction in Bangkok, is beyond the trees amongst
which the Pom Mahakan community lives.
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proposals that met the programme. These proposals were intended to promote discussion rather
than to present plans.
This first major presentation was set for Saturday, January 25th, 2003. We learned as we arrived in
the community around 5 that afternoon, that every family in the community had been served
Thursday afternoon with eviction notices by the Bangkok Metro Administration (BMA).
In the belief that it would improve tourism, BMA had developed a Master Plan for Rattanakosin
Island (the old original settlement of Bangkok). Based on that plan the city planners were going
to initiate its implementation by building a formal park in this area opposite Wat Saket (The
Golden Mount). As a result, according to the BMA park design, the housing had to go.
Despite the bad news, the students made their presentation to the community and continued to
get their feedback on the possibilities for the community. One of the central points of discussion,
though, concerned their prospects. It was here that the community expressed the need to make
use of the students' design as a negotiating tool. Clearly, the typical product that the students
produce at the end of this process - a feasibility study identifying projects, phasing and costs -
would have to change. The report would now have to be an argument for the community's
continued existence.
In order to develop a convincing argument the students not only had to devise an alternative
plan for the community and the park but also a rationale for that alternative. In general this
involved a number of urban development issues:
1. History – an understanding of how we view history and historical preservation. Is it
artefacts alone or people? What is the value of vernacular culture and history?
2. Development – an understanding of the process of development (how decisions are
made, who makes them?)
3. Development costs – an understanding of who benefits from development and who pays.
Are these people being evicted simply for tourism? In the expropriation of land for the
purpose of carving out more park space for the city, the poor are always the first
affected.
4. Parks and open space – an understanding of the use of urban parks and how they work
(pre- and post Jane Jacobs)
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5. Green/Brown issues – ways in which we resolve the basic conflict between green and
brown issues (parks or housing). Must we make this kind of choice?
6. Public/private – the use of space for public vs. private purposes. In this case, the proposal
for private space within the proposed public space of a park. This extends to the use of
streets for economic activity. For example, many of the residents in Pom Mahakan were
street vendors.
7. Sustainability – an understanding of the concept of sustainability (particularly as it relates
to issues of equity)
8. Rights – an understanding of human rights and the right to the city.
9. Conflict – the means by which conflict can be avoided in the development process.
10. Development forces – the effects of gentrification on community economic
development. Does the community have the right to be part of overall economic
development in the city? If so, how?
11. Public Good – who defines the public good? BMA claimed that it is part of their mandate
and that of the elected Governor of the city. The community, academics and NGOs
claimed that the public good was better served by the continued existence of the
community and its history.
The project moved well beyond the infrastructure needs of the community and into the broader
issues of urban development. Any plan that the students developed with the community would
have to respond directly to the BMA proposal. While these architectural efforts continued,
academics and NGOs were involved in many different ways in making legal, social, and
anthropological arguments for the community. This led to a submission to the National Human
Rights Commission on 04 MAR 03.
Representatives of BMA, the Governor's office, and the National Housing Authority were there to
present their interests. On the other side of the table, CODI9 , the Pom Mahakan community
leaders and the KMUTT students presented their argument. Central to that argument was
the plan that the students and community had devised. After nearly 2 hours of presentations
and arguments, the community persuaded the NHRC that the eviction would violate the rights of
the community. While the process was far from over, it was clear that the plan,
legitimized by the participatory process through which it was developed, was an integral part of
the argument. Law, then, was not the only issue through which human rights could be
supported. It was clear that design itself can provide an effective argument against eviction.
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It was also clear that this experience related directly to the UN Habitat Agenda and to a number
of the UN documents on human rights.
4 HUMAN RIGHTS AND DEVELOPMENT
In addition to the fact that the Pom Mahakan community itself saw a link to human rights – after
all, they took their case to the National Human Rights Commission and, with the help of the
Centre On Housing Rights and Evictions (COHRE10), took it to the UN High Commission for Human
Rights in Geneva – their story highlights a number of connections to the UN international law and
policy on human rights. Among the documents affecting this process were the Declaration on
the Right to Development (DRD), the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), and the
Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR).
Participation (DRD 2.3, 8.2) – “free and meaningful participation in development and in
the fair distribution of the benefits resulting therefrom.”
Self-determination (DRD 1.2) – “right to full sovereignty over all their natural wealth and
resources.”
Expression (CRC 13.1, 31.2) – freedom of expression in any media
Information (CRC 17) – cooperation in the production and exchange of information
Education (CRC 28, 29) – “access to scientific and technical knowledge”
Standard of living (UDHR 25.1) – “right to a standard of living adequate for the health and
well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical
care and necessary social services . . .”
Much of what we see above here relates directly to citizenship and democracy, but it can and
should also relate to the way we practice architecture. These words are not abstractions. They
have meaning on the ground, in communities. Looking briefly at two of these rights –
participation and expression – one can see that these words are played out in a series of
decisions and actions.
Participation: The entire process is intended to support the right to ‘free and meaningful
participation in development’. Clearly, as with any community process, there are problems
that obstruct both free and meaningful participation.
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The dynamics of the community itself – who talks in public and who doesn’t. Who has
control, underlying frictions, the framing of the community’s story, conflicting goals
and so on.
The ability to engage – often this has to do with a sense of misplaced status that
comes from the process of professionalization. In other words, ‘We’re the architects
and we know what’s good for you’. There are many reasons why this attitude
develops and it is difficult to erase. In addition to that sense of privilege, though,
there is this sense of ‘problem-solving’ that makes architects and students alike jump
to conclusions about what is needed. Often architects will jump to these conclusions
without even listening to what people are actually trying to say, and hence, solving
problems that aren’t there, solving problems that cannot be solved by design, and so
on.
Understanding/defining the problem: “Don’t ask, ‘What’s the problem?’ Ask, ‘What’s
the story?’ – That way you’ll find out what the problem really is.” (Forester, 1999:19) –
Related to the problem above is simply hearing and interpreting the stories that
people tell. Students and professionals alike will tend to hurry over stories to get to
what they think of as the real issues of planning and design. In so doing, they often
miss the heart of the matter. In John Lennon’s words, ‘Life is what happens while
we’re busy making other plans.’ (Beautiful Boy, 1980). Sometimes we skip over the
matter in our hurry to get to the plans. In doing that, meaningful participation is lost in
another agenda.
Further, the means of participation for communities is not often through the jargon
and tools of planning, but rather through stories. By circumventing the stories, the
process itself is framed in terms of the tools that professionals use – and the
community is unable to use.
For meaningful and free participation to be realized as a right in the development process,
the design professions (the duty-bearers in this case) need to rethink their work in much the
same way that they have started to in their response to environmental issues. Since
architects and planners are directly involved in ‘development’ they have a responsibility to
devise processes that allow for that meaningful participation and fair distribution. This will
require much greater attention to distributive justice and/or protection of the poor in society.
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Expression: Roger Hart pointed out:
“Only through direct participation can children develop a genuine
appreciation of democracy and a sense of their own competence and
responsibility to participate.” (Hart, 1997:3)
In any community design process – a process that involves thinking about the future of a
community – children must be involved. My concern here is with the development of
personal autonomy, the practice of democracy, the developing understanding of planning
and decision-making in communities, and recognition of the value of their ideas.
In the Pom Mahakan process the children worked alongside the adults and their ideas were
presented along with others. The ongoing problem with this is in interpretation (how are their
ideas presented and how are they included?) and in having these voices heard at all.
Although these UN documents addressed a number of issues outlined in the case study above,
there are others that are more specific to urban development. In recognizing the need to fill
these gaps, the proposed Charter on the Right to the City was developed.
5 THE RIGHT TO THE CITY
Even from the straightforward perspective of the concentration of population, many
development issues occur only with those concentrations – fire, health and safety codes, for
example. In addition, as Henri Lefebvre, put it – echoed by Harvey’s point above – “the city is an
ouvre” (Mitchell, 2003:17). Since the publication of his book, Le droit à la ville in 1968, the
concept of the right to the city has been waiting for conditions to catch up to the idea. Among
many other factors, with the planet’s urban population having now become the majority and
with the global economy being dominated by cities, the right to the city has become a
necessary construct. A few of the key issues that Lefebvre considered in outlining this right were:
The public nature of cities – “places of social interaction and exchange” (Mitchell,
2003:18). This is certainly reflected in Richard Florida’s observations about megacities:
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“When people cluster in one place, they all become more productive. And the place
itself becomes much more productive, because collective creativity grows exponentially.
Ideas flow more freely, are honed more sharply and can be put into practice more
quickly.” (Florida, 2006)
Heterogeneity – “different people with different projects must necessarily struggle with one
another over the shape of the city, the terms of access to the public realm, and even the
rights of citizenship.” (Mitchell, 2003:18)
Appropriation – the right to use the spaces of the city – its “use-value that is the necessary
bedrock of urban life would finally be wrenched free from its domination by exchange-
value” (Mitchell, 2003:19). Space must be appropriated for use11.
These ideas are reflected in the draft World Charter on the Right to the City (WCRC). The initial
proposal was presented at the World Social Forum of 2002 in Porto Alegre. The draft now
circulating was agreed upon at the Barcelona WSF in 2005. That same year, UNESCO and UN-
Habitat signed a Memorandum of Understanding to collaborate further with meetings and
research on this issue12.
The Charter itself has 23 Articles some of which are similar to those in the DRD, the UDHR and
other documents, such as the right to education, work, participation, and non-discrimination.
Some, such as Article XIV (The Right to Housing) and Article XVIII (The Right to Health), expand on
rights identified elsewhere. There are a number of other articles, though, that do not appear in
the DRD. These articles address the question of the need for the document.
The Preamble echoes Lefebvre:
“ . . .the respect for different urban cultures . . .”
“The core element of this right is the equitable usufruct of the cities . . .”
It is the use-value that is the fundamental concern here. That use-value is for all citizens –
defined in the text as “all persons who live in the city either permanently or in transit” (Art. 1.5). In
the context of the Pom Mahakan conflict, this would include both Thai and foreign tourists.
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However, another point of concern raised by the drafters of the Charter concerned the
‘merchandizing’ of the city. The Charter,
“denies the “merchandise” concept of cities, in which people who do not have
power, possessions or properties are segregated.”13
The BMA approach to planning, then – proposing a master plan motivated by the
merchandising of Rattanakosin to tourists – cannot be done in this framework. It has
also been argued, by academics involved with the Pom Mahakan struggle and by the
community itself, that that ‘merchandising’ approach to planning wouldn’t actually
work for tourists in any case. In any case, neither group of citizens – the community or
tourists – were given the opportunity to participate in that planning process, yet
another infringement of their rights, outlined in Art. 2.1, as well as CERD14 (5.e.vi),
CEDAW15 (11.1.c), DRD16 (2.3, 8.2), CRC17 (23.1).
Other important distinctions in the WCRC:
Article 2.3, “The Social Function of the City” – This concerns the “fair use of both urban
space and land”, an issue that arose quite clearly in the early days of the Free Speech
Movement in Berkeley and extended to the conflict there over People’s Park. Of
course, this raises the question of who determines what is fair. In the case of Pom
Mahakan, in the hearing before the National Human Rights Commission, the city
representatives made it clear that that determination was part of their legal duty.
Where there was disagreement was not only in respect to who decides what is fair (in
this case it fell to the Chairman of the NHRC), but with respect to the participation in
the decision-making process. Beyond the notion, of fair use, though there is the priority
that is set in this clause for the ‘social, cultural and environmental interest’. Again, the
concern on the ground in the Pom case was who defines these terms. The community
was trying to preserve its own history and culture – a vernacular culture – against the
city’s definition of culture as temples and palaces – an official culture, indeed an
official culture for sale to tourists.
Article 2.7, “The Private Sector’s Social Undertaking” – “The cities shall ensure that the
economic private agents participate in social programs and economic enterprises for
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the purpose of developing solidarity and equality amongst the inhabitants.” This is an
important recognition that the private sector – the prime mover of the economy of the
city – must be seen as a partner in development. There are few instances where this
has been realized. Private-Public Partnerships18 are not quite what is meant here. The
partnership must be larger than simply private companies and the government.
Article 3.1, “Sustainable and Equitable Urban Development” – “guaranteeing the
balance between urban development and the protection of the environment and the
cultural, historical, architectural and artistic heritage, as well as preventing segregation
and territorial exclusion.” The concern here for heritage is reflected in the Habitat
Agenda19, but there is no mention of it in the DRD. Again, it is important to determine
who defines that culture. This clause goes on to state: “cities shall undertake to adapt
measures of urban development, in especially the recuperation of precarious or
marginalized settlements in order to create an integrated and equitable city.” While it
doesn’t answer that question directly, the fact that marginalized and vulnerable
communities are a special concern suggests that they, too, help to define that
heritage.
Article 6.1, “Right to Public Information” – “the right to request and to receive
complete, correct, adequate and timely information . . .”. Meaningful participation
can only occur where all parties have adequate information. Certainly in the case of
the Rattanakosin Master Plan, the city was not forthcoming with information. This lack
of information applied not only to the poor living in the area but to all residents and
workers in the area. Nobody had any part in the development of the plan and none
had any information about it until it was revealed, complete, to the press. It was out of
this need for public information that such organizations as the Urban Resources
Centre20 in Karachi developed. The access to information is critical not only to
meaningful participation, but to security of tenure.
Article 12.1, “Access to And Supply of Domestic and Urban Public Services” – “the right
to access to supplies of drinking water21, electric power, light and heating, health
hospitals, schools, garbage disposal, sanitation facilities, telecommunication . . .” Often
city officials will deny access to services such as electricity, water, and sewers to
squatter communities. It is seen to legitimize their presence. Without access to that
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supply, illegal settlements are left with having water trucked in by private vendors at
many times the cost that legal settlements would pay.
All of these Articles are critical to urban development and, with the exception of their mention in
the Habitat Agenda and the Millennium Development Goals, they do not appear in any of the
international legal documents of the UN. That alone, makes the development of this Charter
important. In addition, though, from the perspective of those involved in the processes of urban
development – architects, engineers and planners – the Charter has some important
implications.
6 SOME IMPLICATIONS FOR ARCHITECTURE
The Modern Movement in architecture,
flowering in the period between the two world
wars with such figures as Mies van der Rohe,
Walter Gropius and Le Corbusier, brought with
it a stated concern for the conditions faced
by the proletarian worker, both in the
workplace and at home. They were
enamoured of the modern machine, the
factory and the purity of industrial form. These
ideas were exemplified by Le Corbusier’s
description of the modern house as a
‘machine for living in’. It also reflected in their
approach to the European city. Paris, according to Le Corbusier, was an irrational medieval city
and needed to be set in order. These ideas were presented in his book, The City of Tomorrow,
published in 1925. There were many captivating sketches of this utopian city. They were so
captivating, indeed, that they began to build these ideas, with a particular enthusiasm after the
Second World War. One such development, Pruitt-Igoe in St. Louis in the US, was given an
architectural award for innovative design in 1952. What happened in the following 20 years tells
a story about architecture and its failure to respond to people, to listen, as Forester puts it, to their
stories.
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The only story here with which the architect was concerned was the execution of that grand
ideological vision of Le Corbusier. As Jane Jacobs put it in 1961, in her landmark book, The Death
and Life of Great American Cities:
“That such wonders may be accomplished, people who get marked with the
planners’ hex signs are pushed about, expropriated, and uprooted much as if they
were the subjects of a conquering power. Thousands upon thousands of small
businesses are destroyed, and their proprietors ruined, with hardly a gesture at
compensation. Whole communities are torn apart and sown to the winds, with a
reaping cynicism, resentment and despair that must be heard and seen to be
believed.” (Jacobs, 1992:5)
Architecture has often been the vehicle for despair, not dignity. It has been so, I would submit,
because it has failed to understand the implications of their design on the rights of people
affected by it. I point out only two examples: participation and self-determination.
1. Participation (WCRC, 2.1, 3.1) – Since the mid-sixties individuals and communities have been
expanding their demands for more involvement in the development affecting them. While
this is also a political (and often legal22) issue about democracy and the responsibilities of
citizenship, here I want to emphasize that it is also psychosocial issue of autonomy/self-
determination. In part this is about the exercise of control over one’s environment and as
such about empowerment and the way that communities define themselves.
Figures 5 & 6 - Pruitt-Igoe in 1952 and in 1972
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The Right to the City: Implications for Architecture
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Implications for architecture: As a result of the protests and riots of the 60s, urban
development in the West has become virtually impossible without evidence of the
participation of affected communities. Funding agencies such as the World Bank will
demand evidence of participatory processes before any work begins on their loan-funded
projects. In part this demand arises out of hard experience. As Stiglitz points out, “broadly
participatory processes (such as ‘voice’, openness, and transparency) promote truly
successful long-term development.” (Stiglitz, 2002:164)
Participation emphasizes process over outcomes (product). As a result conflicts can arise
between the requirements of that process and the formal intentions of the architect (the
‘design-by-committee’ problem). Architects have been trained to emphasize the product
(and aesthetic judgment) over the process. In doing this they effectively marginalize the
profession from these central issues of rights and democracy. When that occurs,
development will often be in a fundamental conflict with rights – with the results described
by Jacobs above.
2. Self-determination (WCRC 2.4) – I see two ways in which self-determination is supported:
through changes in governance and through changes in organizations. With the latter,
there is a move from hierarchies to networks. This affects both information and structures of
organizations. Information moves too slowly (if at all) through to the top of hierarchical
organizations and the response to rapidly changing circumstances is equally slow. “In those
flatter, more network-like organizations, people won’t be merely information transmitters –
they will be empowered assets, acting independently.” (Rischard, 2002:43) Again, being
focused on an end product to the exclusion of the process, architects necessarily end up
favouring hierarchical systems. Their contractual obligations to their clients also reinforce
those hierarchical systems.
Implications: City planning must become more dynamic and responsive to the multiplicity of
needs from a wide variety of actors.
“[I]n most cases it would be a waste of resources to put forward a masterplan.
This is certainly the case where rapid urbanization is taking place . . .The days
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The Right to the City: Implications for Architecture
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of the ‘Masterplan’ hanging on the wall behind the desk of the proud Mayor
or Governor must be numbered.” (Rowland, 1996:78)
Both the marketplace and the city are too dynamic, layered and nuanced for this kind of
central planning. The plan is necessarily obsolete before it is finished. The Rattanakosin
Master Plan is a case in point here. Though it was ratified more than 5 years ago and the
funding was in place for it, the plan still has not been implemented. The plan came out of
hierarchical structures and it was resisted by a broad network that could expand and
contract as needed – a network that transcended class barriers. Despite the fact that the
top-down structure had all the power, that network of scholars, students, professionals and
community representatives was far more responsive and effective. In this case, the use of
networks was one of the tools that supported and improved the community’s security of
tenure.
How architects and planners define space, culture and history of the city affects the way they
act (design) in the public sphere. In many instances, these professionals render the poor invisible
by defining their history and vernacular culture out of existence and by designing space that
excludes them. Once they are invisible participation becomes, at best, tokenism. That tokenism
has repercussions. Watts, Newark and Detroit explode and eventually the architects of the
nation turn to a civil rights activist to help them understand the problem. As Young pointed out,
they are a big part of the problem of cities. In a world that is rapidly urbanizing, that does not
bode well for the future of stable, peaceful cities. Is the Charter a tonic for that? It seems
doubtful unless there is a greater awareness of the implications of actually implementing these
rights to the city.23 It does, though, raise issues about development that are not raised in other
UN documents on human rights. For that alone, it is important.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
FLORIDA, Richard. “The New Megalopolis”, Newsweek International Edition, July 3-10, 2006 issue,
available online at http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/13528839/site/newsweek/
FORESTER, John. The Deliberative Practitioner: Encouraging Participatory Planning Processes. The
MIT Press: Cambridge, Mass., 1999.
HART, Roger. Children’s Participation: The Theory and Practice of Involving Young Citizens in
Community Development and Environmental Care. London: Earthscan Publications, Ltd.,
1997.
Graeme Bristol 12 JAN 07
The Right to the City: Implications for Architecture
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HARVEY, David. “The Right to the City”. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research,
Vol 27:4, December 2003, pp 939-41.
JACOBS, Jane. The Death and Life of Great American Cities. New York: Vintage Books, 1992.
Mitchell, Don. The Right to the City: Social Justice and the Fight for Public Space. New York: The
Guilford Press, 2003.
National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders (The Kerner Report), 1967.
http://faculty.washington.edu/qtaylor/documents/Kerner%20Report.htm
RISCHARD, J. F. High Noon: Twenty Global Issues, Twenty Years to Solve Them. New York: Basic
Books, 2002.
ROWLAND, Jon. “Being a Partner: educating for planning practice.” Pp 77-86 in HAMDI, Nabeel
(ed.), Educating For Real: The Training of Professionals for Development Practice.” London:
Intermediate Technology Publications, 1996.
SASSEN, Saskia. Cities in a World Economy (Second Edition). Thousand Oaks, CA: Pine Forge
Press, 2000.
STIGLITZ, Joseph. “Participation and Development: Perspectives from the Comprehensive
Development Paradigm” pp 163-182 in Review of Development Economics, 6:2, 2002.
Available online at http://www.worldbank.org/participation/extdocs/stiglitz.pdf
UNITED NATIONS CENTRE FOR HUMAN SETTLEMENTS. “Slum Dwellers to Double by 2030: Millennium
Development Goal Could Fall Short” in The Challenge of Slums, 2003. available online at
http://www.unchs.org/mediacentre/presskits.asp
World Charter on the Right to the City (WCRC) available at
http://www.choike.org/nuevo_eng/informes/2243.html or
http://www.env-health.org/IMG/pdf/World_Charter_on_the_Right_to_the_City_-_October_04.pdf
YOUNG, JR., Whitney M. "Man and His Social Conscience". pp. 44-49, AIA Journal, Vol 50:3,
September 1968.
ENDNOTES:
1 See http://faculty.washington.edu/qtaylor/documents/Kerner%20Report.htm
2 from http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,828322-1,00.html
3 It was no coincidence that Henri Lebebvre’s book, Le droit à la ville, was published that year.
One of the leaders of the Paris uprising was a former student of Lebebvre’s – Daniel Cohn-Bendit.
4 See Peter Marcuse, “The ‘Threat of Terrorism’ and the Right to the City”, 32 Fordham Urban Law
Journal Vol. 32, pp 767-786, 2004-2005 for the ways in which authorities have responded to the
threat of terrorism in their control over public space.
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5 The National Urban League (http://www.nul.org/), under Young’s leadership, was one of the
organizers of the 1963 march on Washington that draw some 250,000 people and is remembered
largely for King’s famous ‘I have a dream’ speech.
6 Le Corbusier published the very influential book The City of Tomorrow in 1925. Its call for the
replacement of entire districts of Paris with high-rise tower blocks became the vision of urban
renewal in the post-war period.
7 See http://visibleearth.nasa.gov/view_rec.php?vev1id=5826
8 See http://www.architecture-
humanrights.org/pdf/Papers/Community%20Design%20and%20Human%20Rights-illus.pdf for
more details on the community, the design process and the issues involved.
9 Community Organizations Development Institute, http://www.codi.or.th/
10 See http://www.cohre.org/ . COHRE helped the community draft a letter to OHCHR in
Geneva and walked it through the process to get a timely response to the Thai government
(including their ambassador in Switzerland.
11 The battle over People’s Park in Berkeley in 1969 was certainly a testament to the act of
appropriation. See http://www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/parks/parkspages/PeoplesPark.html and
http://www.afsc.org/about/hist/2002/peoples_park.htm as well as Mitchell, Chapter 3.
12 See http://portal.unesco.org/shs/en/ev.php-
URL_ID=5648&URL_DO=DO_TOPIC&URL_SECTION=201.html
13 See http://www.hic-
mena.org/documents/WSFCharter%20for%20the%20right%20to%20the%20city.doc
14 International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, see
http://www.ohchr.org/english/law/cerd.htm
15 Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women , see
http://www.ohchr.org/english/law/cedaw.htm
16 Declaration on the Right to Development, see http://www.ohchr.org/english/law/rtd.htm
17 Convention on the Rights of the Child, see http://www.ohchr.org/english/law/crc.htm 18 see http://ncppp.org/howpart/index.shtml#define for information on this form of partnership
19 See, for example, clause 152 - http://ww2.unhabitat.org/declarations/ch-4c-8.htm
20 See http://urckarachi.org/Brief%20Introduction.htm , for further information. The URC “felt that
Karachi’s official development plans ignored the larger socio-economic reality of the city and as
such were unworkable, unaffordable and environmentally disastrous. They further felt that
workable alternatives were required and these were possible only with the involvement of
informed communities and interest groups.”
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21 See also, http://www.righttowater.org.uk/code/homepage.asp and Amnesty International’s
site, http://web.amnesty.org/pages/ec-water-eng for further information on the right to water.
22 For example, the UK Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004 includes the requirement for
a Statement of Community Involvement (http://www.opsi.gov.uk/acts/acts2004/40005--
c.htm#18)
23 Article 20.2 helpfully states that “cities shall provide human right education to all the
employees involved in the implantation of the Right to the City and the corresponding
obligations”. Clearly that should include the design professions, though it is interesting to note
that the final Article XXIII, calls for commitments from three sectors: Social Organizations, Local
and National Governments and International Organizations. It says nothing about the design
professionals that are responsible for urban renewal or expressways demolishing communities,