Can We Grant a Right to Place?

AuthorDavid L. Imbroscio
Date01 December 2004
DOI10.1177/0032329204269981
Published date01 December 2004
Subject MatterArticles
10.1177/0032329204269981ARTICLEPOLITICS & SOCIETYDAVID L. IMBROSCIO
Can We Grant a Right to Place?
DAVID L. IMBROSCIO
The author considers the plausibility of granting a “right to place” (RTP) as an
entitlement of citizenship in a nation such as the United States. Such a right would
afford people the capacity to live in the places (or place communities) they choose.
To explore whether granting such a right is plausible, the author identifies and
examines the salient barriers now preventing Americans fromchoosing their place
communities. The final section suggests that these myriad barriers, while formida-
ble, arenot insurmountable—a conclusion that, in turn, suggests that an RTP could
be plausibly granted to Americans in the twenty-first century.
Keywords: place; community; rights; freedom; mobility
I. INTRODUCTION
In his classic Oxford lecture “Citizenship and Social Class,” delivered more
than a half-century ago, the eminent British social theorist T. H. Marshall pre-
sented his powerful and influential conception of the historical development of
citizenship. Reflecting on the English experience, Marshall argued that civil
rights were developed in the eighteenth century, political rights in the nineteenth
century, and social (or “welfare”) rights in the twentieth century.1More recently,
An earlier version of this essay was presented to “Spatial Justice and the City,” a panel held at the
2002 annual meeting of the American Political Science Association. I wish to thank fellow panel par-
ticipants, Owen Fiss, Jerry Frug, Loren King, Todd Swanstrom, and Thad Williamson, for their
insightful comments and helpful suggestions. I also wish to thank JeffSpinner-Halev, Avery Kolers,
Ana Kogl,Mickey Lauria, Preston Quesenberry, Clarissa Hayward, and, especially,Amanda LeDuke
for reading and commenting extensively on earlier versions. My thanks alsogotoPolitics & Society
editorial board member DavidPlotke, whose extensive and detailed feedback helped me to deepen and
sharpen the arguments considerably.
POLITICS & SOCIETY, Vol. 32 No. 4, December 2004 575-609
DOI: 10.1177/0032329204269981
© 2004 Sage Publications
575
Don Herzog suggests the possibility of adding yet another stage to this familiar
schema, by tracing the development of modern citizenship rights further back in
history. Explaining the justification for consent theory—with its “world of mas-
terless individuals” possessing “the right to make their own decisions”—Herzog
points to an even more basic human right won earlier, in the seventeenthcentury.
“Arguably,” he writes, “in the seventeenth century ordinary people win the strug-
gle to be thought of as persons, as the sorts of beings who might have independent
rights at all.”2
My aspiration in this project is similar, save I wish to suggest a projectionof
Marshall’s schema forward in history,to our own, new century—the twenty-first.
Tocivil rights, political rights, and social rights I wish to explore the possibility of
adding the development of what might be called “place rights” or,simply, a “right
to place” (RTP) as an entitlement of citizenship in a nation such as the United
States.3
By RTPI mean that people should have a right to livein the place communities
(i.e., communities rooted in geographic space, such as neighborhoods, cities,
towns, or regions) that they choose,meaning that, above all, the preferences of
individuals should determine this question, rather than a host of other factors
standing largely beyond their control.4Such an RTP would be constituted by a
dual freedom, entailing not only the ability to enter and exit but also the ability to
continue to live where one currently resides. It thus entails the freedom to go, and
to go where one desires, but it also entails the freedom to simply stay put.5Yet,
while recognizing this dual freedom, the RTP would not privilege the freedom to
stay put over the freedom of prospective newcomers to enter, for to do so would
arbitrarily deny some full access to their preferred place communities. In this
sense the RTP not only is constituted by adual freedom but also would be porta-
ble, irrespective of the desire to express exit, entry, or loyalty to place.
“Why Place, Why Now?” Alexandra Kogl asks, constructively, in her insight-
ful preface to a recent symposium in The Good Society.6Consider the second
question first: a focus on place now—in this era of globalization—may seem curi-
ous, as new technologies and political and economic institutions destabilize
places socially and economically and engender heightened population mobility,
often in the form of economic displacement.7Kogl’s answer to the “why now”
question is as compelling as it is succinct: “It is in those moments when a thing is
threatened,” she writes, “that we tend to suddenly recognize its importance.”8
The first question is even more elementary: Why place at all? That is, why add
“place rights” to the pantheon constituted by the Marshallian trilogy of funda-
mental human rights in the civil, political, and social realms? The answer is that
there exists a broad consensus around the notion that the ability to choose one’s
place community is a basic, fundamental freedom—even if the importance of
place rights is not always fully recognized or articulated as such.
576 POLITICS & SOCIETY
Wesee this recognition and articulation—albeit partial—in a number of dispa-
rate forms. Joseph Carens, for example, points out that “freedom of movement
within the nation-state is widely acknowledged as a basic human right,”and gov-
ernments that act to restrict people’s ability to change membership in their
subnational communities are harshly condemned.9For others, such as urbanist
Peter Dreier and his colleagues, this recognition takes on a more consequentialist
tone, as place communities are understood as strongly determinative of individual
well-being. “Place matters,” they demonstrate, because “where we live makes a
big difference in the quality of our lives.”10Thus, to deny people the opportunity to
choose their place communities is to deny them the opportunity to improve their
condition across a whole range of social and economic outcomes.
The fundamental importance of place rights has been recognized in other ways
as well. For example, something like an RTPhas been suggested in the work of a
number of theorists. The political theorist Douglas Rae, for example, specifies
“five particulars which are absolutely essential” for “democratic liberties,” with
the endowment of such liberties being “among the most fundamental purposesof
governance.”The very first among these liberties, as set out by Rae, is “the right to
live in a place of our own choosing.”11 Similarly, the geographer and social theo-
rist Gordon Clark advocates the principle of “maintaining community integrity.
The appeal of such a principle is rooted in “an implied strong social value that
goes to the heart of this policy option—the right of individualsto choose where to
live.”12 The late Brookings Institution scholar James Sundquist offered yet
another formulation. While he did not conceptualize this choice as a right, he does
tie it directly to democracy: as long as “individual preferences were not conclu-
sively outweighed by [economic, social, or environmentalcosts],” he wrote, “the
democratic ethic suggests that what the public wants [regarding residential
choice] should be determinative.”13
The fundamental importance of allowing people the freedom to choose their
place communities also has been givenwide political recognition, even in the con-
servativecontext of the United States. On this point it is instructive to return to the
work of Rae, who points out that, empirically, his five democratic liberties “are
not fancy ideas,”as most of “the content essential to democratic liberty . . . has, at
one time or another, been legislated by Congress and read into the Fourteenth
Amendment of the Constitution by the Supreme Court.”14 Continuing, Rae notes
that the articulation of the “substantive due process” constitutional doctrine in the
early twentieth century included virtually all of these liberties, including, “the
right of the citizen to be free ...tolive...where he will.”15 More recently, the U.S.
Supreme Court also has recognized a “right to travel,”arguing that people need to
accompany goods in interstate commerce16 or, more sweepingly,that to deny such
travel violates the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment of the
Constitution.17 This right to travel, as the legalscholar Paul Dimond points out, “is
DAVID L. IMBROSCIO 577

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