Abstract
This article proposes an analysis of the political and legal aspects of the Right to the City from the perspective of the concept of public sphere. The Right to the City is interpreted as a dynamic link between political mobilization, democratization of social relations and the State’s institutional apparatus, and the guarantee of better conditions of existence in urban space. Based on bibliographical research about the urban social struggles in Brazil and in the city of São Paulo, the article intends to demonstrate that the Right to the City is exercised by the population through clashes in the public sphere responsible for stimulating the renewal of the legal order and for attributing new meanings to the existing Law.
right to the city; public sphere; political participation; social function of property and city; social movements