ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book provides a more detailed engagement with the development of Henri Lefebvre’s ideas about space, cities and the urban. It also provides critical insights into Lefebvre’s life journey from the rural to the urban, albeit he never quite considered himself a fully metropolitan Parisian. Lefebvre’s reconsideration of the city necessitated of course an appreciation of the role of the capitalist mode of production in the formulation and reproduction of the city and the ensuing urbanisation. The urban as a focus for analysis consists of: space, everyday life and neo-capitalist economic and social relations. Lefebvrian urbanisation implies increasing alienation but also the capacity for leisure and festival. Activists draw on Lefebvre’s right to the city ideas whether consciously or not, and a stream of literature stresses the importance of city centrality rather than an explosion of urban fragments into an amorphous urbanisation.
