Week 6

Reading Response:

· In “Cities Belong to Us,” Hollis cites Henri Lefebvre’s idea of “the right to the city.” How is “the right to the city” defined in the article? Who has the right to the city? Who has “access” to public spaces? How do the articles by Stafford, Posner, or Dumke help illustrate the meaning of this quotation and the consequences for public space?

It should be people that have the right to claim a city. Today capitalism is what takes over the city, they turn spaces where people socialize into exclusive goods. While citizens have some type of access to public spaces, that access is taken away when the government and other capitalists such as businesses men team up to turn those spaces into other things such as shopping malls. The right to the city is people being able to access park and public spaces freely. It is individuals trying to stop the process of urbanization. This is why walkers need to think of themselves as citizens so that they can claim the city in which they walk on. So that they can stop capitalism from taking over the public space that they usually attend to distract their mind.

I started my walk at 6am in the morning hoping that there would not be a lot of people out at the time but there was. I looked for a higher up place to sit down so that I could see the whole park from there. I sat on the floor at the top of a little hill. At 6:10 2 girls walked into the park, both of them sat in the swings but the whole time they were there they did not talk to each other at all, just looked at theirs phones. also there was a girl wearing stilettos which I thought was weird because its the park and usually people wear more comfortable clothes but to each their own. There was another guy whom I saw around 6:30, he was walking a great pyrenee puppy but the puppy sat layed down and did not want to walk anymore so the guy had to carry the puppy.