Lived space and everyday struggles for the right to the city: continuities and com- experiences in Feira de Santana-Bahia

Abstract

This text tries to address the social emergencies that contemporary cities present to us, based on what a previous reflection dealt with and those surrounding the right to the city. To cover it, we return to Lefebvre and consider that the conceptual and political reflections that emerged, bring a plurality of meanings, even if it is stated as an appeal and a demand. As an appeal linked to basic needs, and as a demand related to widespread discontent. Therefore, rights in the city – in the plural! – would handle housing, transport, public facilities, participation in local decisions, among others; and the right to the city – in the singular! – would require the complete transformation of the urban With regard to the lived space, the text refers to that of the residents of the residences of the MCMV program, in the Mangabeira neighborhood in Feira de Santana-Bahia, whose conception regarding location placed them in what we can call “non-cities”, both due to the distance from consolidated urban centers and the complete absence of any urban equipment and services. Feira de Santana served to propose that the city is made up of many voices and imposes many ways of living and ways of being and living that, paradoxically, urban spaces simultaneously behave and silence. Hence the importance of consolidating that production of urban space and the right to the city must be seen from the perspective of everyday life, of struggles and socio-spatial dimensions and policies that involve society as a whole.