The essential idea is that cities are places of opportunity and possibility which shape us and are shaped by us. The idea of the right to the city asserts a collective right to the city. This means that everyone has the right to live in the city, to access the city and to change the city. The right of everyone to an urban life means that the social value of land has to be prioritised over its commercial value if this right is to be realised for the poor…The right to shape the city means that ordinary people have the right to organise and to challenge the power that state and capital exercise over the development of cities.

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