ABSTRACT
This chapter describes the link between right to the city and the urban commons by suggesting that the language and discourse of the “commons” is an important means to realize or instantiate the right to the city but from within a property rights framework. Property rights go to the heart of questions of economic and social inequality, and this is especially true in the current era in which the gap between the haves and have nots is steadily increasing. As long as large segments of the population lack the security that property rights provide, he argues, many social problems will remain quite intractable. The right to the city has to mean, as its adherents agree, the right to governance of the city by its inhabitants. The city as a commons approach thus embraces commons-based experimentation that promotes inclusive development and city-making practices, as well as new forms of collective urban welfare provisioning.
