Brazil and the Right to the City

Post date: Jul 2, 2013 8:50:47 AM

Planning Theory and Practice on Brazil’s Plan for a More Equal City

The Right to the City

The recent riots in Brazil have highlighted a country of grand policies and ideas and their complex implementation.

Brazil’s Right to the City initiative drew on the ideals of the global ‘right to the city movement’ and aimed to achieve social justice in a country notorious for spatially-segregated, unequal cities.

In this issue of Planning Theory and Practice, Abigail Friendly’s paper ‘The Right to the City: Theory and Practice in Brazil’ examines the challenges of implementing this policy in Niterói, Rio de Janeiro State.

The paper explores the application of an undoubtedly innovative 2001 national Brazilian law: the Statute of the City. Mandating participation in master planning and establishing urban development tools for cities to use to promote social justice in planning, the experience has been called both innovative and inspiring.

The study of the application of the Statute in a mid-sized Brazilian city illustrates the gap between rhetoric and practice. Despite the many challenges raised by this case and others, Brazil’s valiant attempt to apply the right to the city in a challenging urban context must be praised.

In the case of Niterói, participatory planning had been implemented since the 1990s with the deliberate intention of promoting social justice and the right to the city.

For Niterói’s former mayor, the idea from the beginning was very clear: “What doesn't work is you stay with what already exists, with sewage running down the stairs here and on the side, luxury buildings and such; so the building will pay for that luxury. So the idea was this, it was to use the tools in order for you to promote social justice, in a clear manner…”

In the light of recent events this is a fascinating read for planning practitioners and researchers. The paper offers a nuanced examination of the theory and practice of an unprecedented urban policy currently in use in Brazil, suggesting possibilities for how the right to the city can be guaranteed for all.

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14649357.2013.783098 - free to download

For more information please contact Iain Matthews, iain.matthews@tandf.co.uk