What is the Right to the City Alliance?

Right to the City (RTTC) is a newly formed alliance of base building organizations from cities across the country as well as researchers, academics, lawyers, and other allies.  We came together in January of 2007 to build a united response to gentrification and the drastic changes imposed on our cities. We stand together under the notion of a Right to the City for all.

Right to the City offers a framework for resistance and a vision for a city that meets the needs of working class people. It connects our fights against gentrification and displacement to other local and international struggles for human rights, land, and democracy.

We are coming together under a common framework to increase the strength of our community organizations and our collective power. Our goal is to build a national urban movement for housing, education, health, racial justice and democracy. 

*GRASSROOTS ORGANIZING: Right to the City
Tony Roshan Samara
On January 11, 2007 at the Japanese American Cultural Community Center in Little Tokyo in downtown Los Angeles, Gihan Perera, the executive director of the Miami Workers Center, addressed an energetic crowd of over 100 community organizers, representing over 30 organizations and 8 major cities. They came to build a national urban justice movement around the concept of a Right to the City. The intention was to begin building collective capacity for local struggles to become a national movement. Perera declared, "We are leaving here with a game plan. This is a working meeting."