The triumph of David Harvey’s Social Justice and the City

ABSTRACT In commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the publication of David Harvey’s Social Justice and the City, this paper examines the continued relevance of Harvey’s work on the study of cities. The author draws on his own experience in the classroom to identify the value of Harvey’s work in providing a critical counterpoint to the simplistic liberal and neoliberal models of urban life and social justice that persist. The paper provides a brief summary of Social Justice and the City and pulls out what the author believes to be its major methodological and philosophical contributions. Apart from its significance in the history of geographic thought, and its importance for understanding Harvey’s intellectual trajectory, the paper argues that Social Justice and the City remains important as a tool for demystifying the categories and concepts that continue to be used in our understanding of urban phenomena.