ABSTRACT
Unequal access to the full range of city life has led to important discussions in both the last century and the current one regarding how human beings have a right to the city. This chapter examines the notion of the right to the city by examining the claims of two early theorists, Henri Lefebvre and David Harvey, and discusses these claims in the context of the urgent environmental crises we now face. It then proposes that, in addition to thinking of a right to the city, we must also acknowledge that there are rights of cities. The chapter argues for a particular conception of a city, one that treats the city as a unique type of ecosystem. As such, it includes living things as components. The city is better thought of as having rights\and not simply as a thing to which its human inhabitants have a right. In conceiving of a city in this way, the idea of fair access to what a city provides can be fleshed out in a more fruitful way than thinking of a city as a “resource” to be used.
