Ten years of the City Statute in Brazil: from the struggle for urban reform to the World Cup cities

Abstract

The City Statute, an innovative national legal framework directed to strengthen local planning and land management towards more equitable and sustainable urban development, was approved by Brazilian Congress in 2001 as a result of political and legal reforms arising from the new Constitution of 1988 in the context of Brazilian democratisation. A decade later, we examine if, where and how this legal framework has been implemented in the country. This assessment must consider the political and social dimensions of the process that resulted in the Statute, as well as the ways those dimensions were transformed in Brazil throughout the 10 years since the Statute's approval by the National Congress. The hypothesis presented by this article is that the entire process of formulation, approval, enforcement and interpretation of the City Statute has been a history of disputes between different urban reform projects in the country, particularly between a rights-based approach of the urban reform movement and a market-driven competitive cities spatial regime paradigm.

A Metropolização da pobreza de São Paulo: Dinâmica Imobiliária, Violência e a Organização Socioespacial da Metrópole

“…Vários autores (MARICATO, 2013;ROLNIK, 2013) têm chamado atenção ainda para os processos de periferização decorrentes das práticas espaciais que condicionam o provimento de moradias por intermédio dos programas habitacionais do Programa Minha Casa, Minha Vida (PMCMV), que reproduzem, com grande intensidade, os padrões de centro e periferia, forçan-do aqueles que acessam o programa, na grande maioria das vezes, a residirem em periferias longínquas.…”

Development as we know it? Change and continuity in the production of urban and regional space in Brazil

“…Ironically, in its initial years, the Ministry of Cities had been actively promoting the application of the Statute, while in more recent years its role has switched to the monitoring of federally financed housing and upgrading programmes. Moreover, as analysed by Denaldi (2013) and Rolnik (2013), considering the limited state leverage over the escalating housing and real estate prices, the federal programmes have actually generated a series of contradictions with the basic premises of low income housing policies of facilitating the access of the poorer sections of the population to welllocated land and housing in the city.…”

“…Ultimately, they argue that the key to more equitable and sustainable urban development in Brazil, and the global South more generally, lies in policy-makers embracing urbanisation and planning for it in advance including recognising the rights of the poor to the city and preparing for their land and housing needs. Raquel Rolnik (2013) provides an analysis of how the formulation, elaboration and effective implementation of the city statute on the ground has proven challenging in the light of the conflicts and contradictions of a right based approach within an increasingly competitive developmental state spatial regime. On the basis of three key dimensions that underpin the City Statute and the broader movement of urban/social reform -that is, recognition and regularization of slums and informal settlements; participatory planning and democratization of decision-making arenas and regulatory roll-out and legal instruments aimed at land market reform -she analyses how the right to the city is being continuously contested by a political project structured around increasing commodification of the city.…”

O estabelecimento de objetivos e indicadores de sustentabilidade para avaliação ambiental estratégica aplicada a planos de desenvolvimento urbano

“…Como bem destacam Fernandes (2013) e Rolnik (2013), o Estatuto é fruto de um movimento de reforma urbana pelo direito à cidade, que emergiu como contraposição a um modelo de urbanização excludente e espoliativo que vem prevalecendo ao longo de décadas de urbanização acelerada. Além do direito à cidade e à moradia, o Estatuto também inclui entre seus fundamentos a promoção do equilíbrio ambiental e da sustentabilidade, sendo o Plano Diretor um de seus instrumentos essenciais de política urbana (BRASIL, 2001).…”

“…Nesse sentido, alguns autores têm procurado compreender as razões da permanência dos problemas socioambientais urbanos e os desafios que se apresentam para a sua superação (FERNANDES, 2013;ROLNIK, 2013 (WOOD, 2002;SANTOS, 2004;SÁNCHEZ, 2006). Segundo Fischer (2007), a partir de então as avaliações ambientais assumem importância significativa no planejamento das ações humanas, na medida em que promovem a inserção do aspecto ambiental e oferecem aos tocadores de decisão condições para a promoção da proteção ambiental e do desenvolvimento sustentável.…”