The right to the safe city:

commodification, spatial injustice and urban vulnerability in Athens

Abstract

This paper examines the relationship between urban commodification and the erosion of spatial security, situated at the intersection of critical urban theory and environmental criminology. Drawing on Henri Lefebvre's "Right to the City" and David Harvey's framework of accumulation by dispossession, the study argues that processes of commodification do not merely produce spatial injustice in the abstract, but generate concrete conditions of urban vulnerability that undermine residents' sense of safety and erode the social fabric of neighbourhoods.

Through a GIS-based multi-layer spatial analysis of Athens, the research maps four intersecting dimensions of urban transformation: short-term rental density, residential rent levels, green space distribution, and the geography of civic resistance. The findings reveal a consistent spatial logic in which highly commodified neighbourhoods are simultaneously characterised by housing pressure, environmental deprivation, and intensified social contestation, indicating a spatial concentration of vulnerability in the city's central areas.

Due to the absence of neighbourhood-level crime data, the study does not directly measure crime, but instead analyses spatial conditions associated with increased vulnerability, including weakened informal social control, incivilities, and heightened fear of crime. Complementary aggregated data suggest a disproportionate concentration of property crime in central Athens. Building on these findings, the paper introduces the concept of the "Right to the Safe City", extending Lefebvre's framework to include urban safety as a fundamental spatial right.