Housing: The Right to the City

Susanna F. Schaller, CUNY City College

Abstract

This online course (“Housing: Right to the City”) explores the meanings we attach to the notion of housing, shelter, property and home. It is a Zero Textbook Cost class.

Departing from an engagement with the concept of “the right to the city” as theorized by Henri Lefebvre through the work of David Harvey and Marc Purcell, we will discuss the usefulness of the concept in working toward a more just and equitable city, especially, as it relates to housing. We will study the history of public policies and private practices that have shaped the housing markets in the US in order to examine the inequities that were embedded in our urban landscapes. We will then relate these to the racially disparate impacts of crises as we have recently witnessed during the current COVID 19 pandemic.