From Progressive Property to Progressive Cities: Can Socially Sustainable Interpretations of Property Contribute toward Just and Inclusive City-Planning? Global Lessons

Abstract

This paper explores if and how the idea of progressive property can help to shape more inclusive, sustainable, and just cities around the globe. While quite nuanced, at its heart the progressive perspective on property considers property as a means of addressing important human needs. It is consistent with reciprocal and communitarian approaches to property rights. Nowhere are these insights more relevant or needed than in cities—dense urban areas where legacies of exclusion have deprived disadvantaged groups of housing and public services. In cities and neighboring suburbs, the right to exclude collides head-on with the need to share limited space with those of little means. By re-examining the work of progressive property scholars, we suggest concrete ways of reconceptualizing access to the city. This paper ties legal theory to housing and city-planning by proposing an international perspective to progressive property scholarship, with a focus on local government policies pertaining to housing. We do so by comparatively examining case studies from the United States (US), Spain, Brazil, and Israel—four countries that are actively experimenting with progressive definitions of property in a manner which affects urban planning and housing in cities.

Brazilian Urban Policy: Sustainability as a Driving Force

“…Contemplating, reflecting on and articulating contemporary themes that affect "urban space" has become almost inevitable insofar that urban spaces, rather than geographic spaces, have become the stage for various transformations [3] . Undoubtedly, among the various subjects that influence this discussion, dealing with urban sustainability under the aegis of urban policies [9] has become the theme in recent decades and will remain so for the foreseeable future [4]. In this way, the investigation of urban policies must be approached from two techno-scientific stances: an analysis of the founding principles and instruments employed for the execution of these so-called urban policies, and an analysis of the necessary geographic space that is linked to these formulated policies [6].…”

“…In Brazil, the driving force dealing with the theme of urban policy gained support due to the advent of the promulgation of the Federal Constitution of 1988 and, subsequently, other city legislations have been woven around it. Thus, in becoming more normalized/enacted, this constitution acquired a fundamental status [9,18]. In giving potency to the issue of urban policy, the Statute of Cities Federal Law 10.257/2001, which regulates it, emerged as a historical milestone with respect to articles 182 and 183 of the Brazilian Magna Carta.…”

“…For a better understanding of the theme, Figure 1 illustrates the basic differences between the expressions of city law and RTTC. In summary, the propositions of the scholars Alfonsin, Clement, Lefebvre and Carvalho and Rodrigues [2,4,9,21], among others, refer to a claim, or even manifestation, in the search for the RTTC; this, in turn, refers to a whole set of rules and principles that aim to establish and promote a city that fulfils the social purposes of being more just, egalitarian and sustainable for its dwellers. In order to enable further understanding, the social functions of a city, which are correlated both to the comprehension of the RTTC and to the guidelines of the urban policy, are examined more closely in the following section.…”

“…Therefore, the perception is that any study on the social functions of a city has an interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary nature, but does not lose the legal characteristics in the analysis of the norm. Following this line of thought, Clemente, Bernardi, Dias et al, and Maricato [9,16,19,22] point out that, above all, in order to have a right to a renewed and transformed urban life, it is necessary to pay attention to social functions. However, the following question remains: what are the social functions?…”

“…However, as these social functions are not defined specifically, the door is open to new definitions of this principle. From this perspective, Clemente and Bernardi [9,19] elucidate that the social functions of the city are intricately linked to human dignity and the full development of urban activities, but that they also provide better living conditions. In the view of Lefebvre [5], being a product of the various modelling agents of urban space has several functionalities and these must meet the social concerns so that the RTTC can exist.…”