« Cooper Square is here to stay » Une relecture institutionnaliste du droit à la ville

Abstract

This article proposes a rereading of the right to the city using an institutionalist approach following the works of Hohfeld, Commons, Marcuse and Ostrom. Section 1 offers a critical analysis of the legacy of Henri Lefebvre's work promoted by radical geography, which has remained too focused on the exercise of collective power over the processes of urbanization. By borrowing the analytical tools crafted by the Bloomington School, the right to the city asserts itself first as a right to the appropriation of urban resources, foremost among which is housing. Section 2 draws on the experience of the Cooper Square Community Land Trust in New York to illustrate the empirical and theoretical significance of this institutionalist rereading of the right to the city. We argue that understanding the diversity of residential property regimes is a promising avenue for finding lasting solutions to the affordable housing crisis, thereby making the right to the city a reality.

Keywords

• right to the city
• community land trust
• property regime
• bundle of rights
• commons
• affordable housing