In urban planning, academia, and activism, a few ideas have become undisputed, commonsense pieces of wisdom. While the specific vocabulary may vary, at heart, the broadly progressive approach to thinking about cities is defined by what can be called the “open city” model of urban design. This model is based on the assumption that, for residents of any given city to be free, the city must be designed in such a manner that all inhabitants have equal access to urban space and resources.

From the perspective of most urban planners, progressive or otherwise, for a city to be “open,” the population must have the liberty and ability to move freely through it. The residents of an open city must not be limited by where they live, work, or spend their leisure time. It must be a place in which economic, racial, and gender inequality do not determine one’s ability to live well or access the wonderful things that cities offer. The open city is most definitely not a place in which the poor and disadvantaged are forced to live in unhealthy and dangerous neighborhoods, with little ability to leave, while the rich live a life of luxury in their gated communities; it is not a city characterized by the criminalization of poverty, mass surveillance of racialized minorities, and the gentrification of its most vulnerable communities simply because the market has determined their neighborhoods to be a nice place to live for yuppies. A shorthand for expressing the basic ideas associated with the open city has emerged among progressive activists, characterized by the slogan “the right to the city.” It means that all people who live in a city, regardless of who they are, what they do, or how much money they make, have an equal right to use its resources and claim ownership to its space.

As the default progressive vision, there is no doubt that the open city is an intuitively attractive idea. But if one looks at it more closely, it begins to become clear that its underlying values are shared not just by those on the Left, but also by those who identify on the political right. It is a normative framework promoted by liberals and anarchists, libertarians and Marxists, post-structuralists and communitarians. It is like a holy spirit of political ideology in that it appears to transcend political divides.