The Right to the City Social Justice and the Fight for Public Space

In the wake of recent terrorist attacks, efforts to secure the American city have life-or-death implications. Yet demands for heightened surveillance and security throw into sharp relief timeless questions about the nature of public space, how it is to be used, and under what conditions. Blending historical and geographical analysis, this book examines the vital relationship between struggles over public space and movements for social justice in the United States. Presented are a series of linked cases that explore the judicial response to public demonstrations by early twentieth-century workers, and comparable legal issues surrounding anti-abortion protests today; the Free Speech Movement and the history of People's Park in Berkeley; and the plight of homeless people facing new laws against their presence in urban streets. The central focus is how political dissent gains meaning and momentum--and is regulated and policed--in the real, physical spaces of the city. Ke

Don Mitchell is a Professor of Geography in the Maxwell School at Syracuse University. After receiving his doctorate in geography from Rutgers University in 1992, he taught at the University of Colorado before moving to Syracuse. He is the author of two previous books and numerous articles on the geography of labor, urban public space, and contemporary theories of culture. He is a recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship and has held a Fullbright Fellowship at the University of Oslo. He is the founder and director of the People's Geography Project (www.peoplesgeography.org).