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This chapter constructs a meaningful association between differential space and the right to the city. In so doing it seeks to both flesh out Lefebvre’s sketchy differential space idea and contextualise it in the contingencies of the 21st century. Second, it is the visual culmination of the book delivered through a series of images that add an analytical twist to the explication of differential space. This chapter differs from the previous six in that research material from all three case study cities is presented in order to demonstrate the divergent origins and various kinds of differential space, from ludic to politicised-democratic, that are produced through similar processes involving civic society engagement, urban policy, planning and regeneration.

This chapter presents empirical and theoretical reflection on the key findings of the research. Important similarities and differences in the case study empirical revelations are emphasised. Methodological conclusions allow the assessment of a Lefebvrian approach to understanding the creation of urban public space and post-industrial transformation. The conlcusions take care not to offer unsubstantiated sweeping generalisations but do show how the findings have importance beyond the three cities. The chapter explains the theoretical contributions made by the book and offers a programme for future research. In concluding, the book returns to the importance of urban public space for convivial urbanity and for democratic cohesion in relatively open and tolerant societies. Differential space is seen and comprehended in a new light.

This chapter discusses the methods used in analyzing architecture and the urban society in the context of space. The analysis of architecture is linked with the practice of architects as a producer of space, but they are not the only one who operates within a specific space—the sheet of white paper. This chapter examines the perspective of Henri Lefebvre’s work on the possibility of differential space which contradicts abstract space of postwar capitalism. It also describes Lefebvre’s project as a specific orientation of his theorizing of space in general.

This chapter explores various efforts to “sell” neighborhoods as well as the construction and destruction of community through commodification. Using as examples Paseo Boricua in Humboldt Park and Halsted North (Boys Town) in Lakeview, it shows how particular ethnicities or lifestyles have been appropriated by cities and capital to be commodified and consumed. It also considers how some residents benefit while others confront the daily realities of continuous displacement and impoverishment created by the commodification process. While forces within Paseo Boricua and Halsted North carved out differential spaces, the chapter argues that commodification has transformed them into spaces for sale and what they represent—gayness and Puerto Ricanness. These cases illustrate the openings, dynamics, and contradictions involved in neighborhood change.

This book has highlighted the shortcomings of both mainstream and critical approaches used to explain how and why neighborhoods change by focusing on the case of Chicago. The evidence it has presented shows that neighborhoods are important yet limited spaces for study, policy making, and activism. This concluding chapter discusses the three broad categories of forces that shape neighborhood space and change over time in the current regime, both conceptually and practically: flexible accumulation, accumulation by expropriation, and the production of new space whose identity is driven by socialized consumership. It also offers a grounded set of recommendations for a different approach to how we study, document, and experience the realities of neighborhood change, arguing, for example, that we must view every neighborhood as constituted and specifically as a product for consumption or confinement; look for evidence of efforts to produce differential spaces in order to understand how and why some neighborhoods change and others do not; and historicize neighborhoods and explanations for why they change.