Reinforcing uneven development: The financialisation of Brazilian urban redevelopment projects

Abstract

The entrepreneurial city discourse has been adopted around the globe by policymakers, with the urban redevelopment project as one of its most representative symbols. The predominantly favourable discourse revolving around this new political economy of urban space is supported by claims that newly regenerated areas bring multiple benefits to the city and its citizens. These narratives have been used in Brazil to justify increasing reliance on an urban planning tool known as Urban Operations. This planning tool, developed in the 1990s, seeks to facilitate cooperation between public and private actors in the production of new urban spaces. While projected by some as a ‘magic formula’ that enables major urban redevelopment projects without public expenditure, the outcomes of Urban Operations often differ significantly from expectations. The cases of Água Espraiada (São Paulo) and Porto Maravilha (Rio de Janeiro) are used to demonstrate that regenerated areas, as preferred spaces for the penetration of financialised practices into the built environment, have brought forward new dynamics that are serving to reinforce pre-existing social inequalities and to exacerbate uneven development in Brazil’s main cities.

Megaprojects, Gentrification, and Tourism. A Systematic Review on Intertwined Phenomena

“…About 49% of all the codes dealing with stakeholders concentrate on public decision-makers. The state is seen as "a key articulator in speculative city development schemes" [53]. Despite the popularity of public-private partnerships, many of the megaprojects are state-led.…”

Legacy participation and the buried history of racialised spaces: Hypermodern revitalisation in Rio de Janeiro’s port area

“…OUCs financed by CEPACs deregulate land use to prioritise higher densities within predefined boundaries, enabling upfront financial resources associated with future redevelopment. CEPACs are thus ‘a title of fictitious capital issued by the state and through which the latter capitalises on future expectations’ (Mosciaro and Pereira, 2019: 6). Paradoxically, the Statute strengthened these tools, requiring resources to be applied exclusively within OUCs, resulting in ‘a reinvestment circuit’ in already favoured areas (Fix, 2009: 51).…”

Real Estate Industry as an Urban Growth Machine: A Review of the Political Economy and Political Ecology of Urban Space Production in Mexico City

“…In short, urban speculation, as understood in this paper, concerns a diversity of built space and market logics and cycles, with perhaps the housing market in Mexico being the one that may differ the most from other cases of the Global North, because of the heavy role of the State in the mortgage market, the prevalence of auto-construction practices, the limited planning practices, the uneven distribution of income and the informality, among other aspects. Accordingly, there are more similarities with Manila's speculative urbanization [31] or the uneven development based on the financialization of urban redevelopment projects in Brazil [32].…”