Rebel Cities: From the Right to the City to the Urban Revolution
Why this book?
Harvey is one of the most prominent scholars on capitalism and the city. He has shown how capital regularly takes recourse to urban ‘renewal’ plans to overcome crises of capital accumulation. In the form of gentrification, rising rents, and housing shortage, such plans directly affect the lives of those who live and work in the city, and they have repeatedly united to resist such developments and reclaim the city. In Rebel Cities, Harvey explains how enduring conflicts between capital and labor have turned the city into a contested space and how these struggles influence the development of cities. This book reconstructs the history of urban movements and provides a theoretical framework for understanding the possibilities and hurdles that movements such as squatters face when reclaiming the city.