ABSTRACT
The Routledge Handbook of Henri Lefebvre,The City and Urban Society is the first edited book to focus on Lefebvre's urban theories and ideas from a global perspective, making use of recent theoretical and empirical developments, with contributions from eminent as well as emergent global scholars.
The book provides international comparison of Lefebvrian research and theoretical conjecture and aims; to engage with and critique Lefebvre's ideas in the context of contemporary urban, social and environmental upheavals; to use Lefebvre's spatial triad as a research tool as well as a point of departure for the adoption of ideas such as differential space; to reassess Lefebvre's ideas in relation to nature and global environmental sustainability; and to highlight how a Lefebvrian approach might assist in mobilising resistance to the excesses of globalised neoliberal urbanism. The volume draws inspiration from Lefebvre's key texts (The Production of Space; Critique of Everyday Life; and The Urban Revolution) and includes a comprehensive introduction and concluding chapter by the editors. The conclusions highlight implications in relation to increasing spatial inequalities; increasing diversity of needs including those of migrants; more authoritarian approaches; and asymmetries of access to urban space. Above all, the book illustrates the continuing relevance of Levebvre's ideas for contemporary urban issues and shows – via global case studies – how resistance to spatial domination by powerful interests might be achieved.
The Handbook helps the reader navigate the complex terrain of spatial research inspired by Lefebvre. In particular the Handbook focuses on: the series of struggles globally for the 'right to the city' and the collision of debates around the urban age, 'cityism' and planetary urbanisation. It will be a guide for graduate and advanced undergraduate teaching, and a key reference for academics in the fields of Human Geography, Sociology, Political Science, Applied Philosophy, Planning, Urban Theory and Urban Studies. Practitioners and activists in the field will also find the book of relevance.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
part Part 1|88 pages
Globalised neoliberal urbanism: Hegemony and opposition
chapter 4|10 pages
Contesting spaces of an urban renewal project
chapter 5|9 pages
Lefebvre and contemporary urbanism
chapter 6|10 pages
Neo-liberalism, extraction and displacement
chapter 8|10 pages
Prohibited places
part Part 2|84 pages
Rethinking the spatial triad and rhythmanalysis
chapter 10|10 pages
Spaces of resistance in Luanda
chapter 14|9 pages
Counter-spaces, no-man’s lands and mainstream public space
chapter 16|10 pages
Space in representation
part Part 3|88 pages
Representing and contesting urban space
chapter 18|14 pages
Interpreting the spatial triad
chapter 19|9 pages
Movement without words
chapter 22|10 pages
Dwelling on design
chapter 24|10 pages
Contested cultural heritage space in urban renewal
part Part 4|86 pages
Planetary urbanisation and ‘nature’
chapter 28|9 pages
Transforming nature through cyclical appropriation or linear dominance?
part Part 5|86 pages
Rethinking the right to the city
chapter 33|11 pages
Right to the city or to the planet?
chapter 34|10 pages
‘In a group you feel OK, but outside there you are ready to die’
chapter 37|11 pages
The ‘newcomers’ ’ right to the city
chapter 38|10 pages
The right to the city
chapter 39|9 pages
Lefebvre and the inequity of obesity
part Part 6|96 pages
Right to the city, differential space and urban utopias