Social Sciences in China (Chinese Edition)

No.1, 2014

City Rights: Global Horizon and Chinese Issue—From the Perspective of the City’s Philosophy and Critical History

(Abstract)

Chen Zhong

City rights is a historical category that changes along with forms of civilization and modes of production. Such rights constitute an important basis for the prosperity and stability of the city. People’s understanding of these rights as they relate to different stages of the city’s development varies depending on their value and methodological context. Some views of city rights have a technological-economic focus or a socio-political focus; others have a culture-life focus or an ecological-environmental focus. In the unity of history and logic, city rights constitute the concrete unfolding and realization of the essence of man and man’s subjectivity as the sum of all social relations. City rights represent the unity of spatial and social rights, eligibility and action rights, and the rights of the individual and the whole. From the perspective of the labor theory of value, participating in the whole process of space production and city development as the subject of practice is a fundamental city right. Setting up a discourse system of city rights in accordance with the spirit of the age, the laws of urban development, and China’s distinctive conditions has great strategic significance for the rationalization, standardization and realization of the future prosperity and stability of the city and society.