scholarly journals Preserving the (right kind of) city: The urban politics of the middle classes in Belo Horizonte, Brazil

Urban Studies ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 57 (10) ◽  
pp. 2163-2180
Author(s):  
Mara Nogueira
Keyword(s):  
Middle Class ◽  
Urban Space ◽  
Urban Politics ◽  
Capital Accumulation ◽  
Urban Poor ◽  
Urban Policy ◽  
Continuous Process ◽  
Belo Horizonte ◽  
The Right ◽  
The City

Since re-democratisation, Brazil has experienced a slow but continuous process of urban reform, with the introduction of legal and institutional developments that favour participatory democracy in urban policy. Legal innovations such as the City Statute have been celebrated for expanding the ‘right to the city’ to marginalised populations. While most studies examine the struggles of the urban poor, I focus on middle-class citizens, showing how such legal developments have unevenly affected the ways in which different social groups are able to impact the production of urban space. The two cases explored in this study concern residents’ struggles to preserve their middle-class neighbourhoods against change triggered by projects related to the hosting of the 2014 World Cup in Belo Horizonte, Brazil. The first looks at the Musas Street residents’ fight against the construction of a luxury hotel in their neighbourhood, while the second examines the Pampulha residents’ struggle against the presence of street vendors and football fans in their streets. My findings show that through the articulation of legal discourses, middle-class claims on the need for preserving the environment and the city’s cultural heritage are legitimised by the actions of the local state. The article thus looks beyond neoliberalism, showing that socio-spatial segregation and inequality should not be regarded solely as the product of state–capital alliances for engendering capital accumulation through spatial restructuring, but also as the result of the uneven capacities of those living in the city to access the state resources and legitimise certain forms of inhabitance of urban space.

scholarly journals O ESTADO BRASILEIRO E A POLÍTICA URBANA:

2020 ◽  
Vol 32 (1) ◽  
pp. 174-194
Author(s):  
Joabio Alekson Cortez Costa ◽  
Júlia Diniz de Oliveira ◽  
Raimundo Nonato Junior
Keyword(s):  
Urban Development ◽  
Urban Space ◽  
Urban Politics ◽  
Urban Policy ◽  
Life Quality ◽  
Master Plan ◽  
Basic Sanitation ◽  
Increasing Demand ◽  
Space Production ◽  
The City

RESUMO   No Brasil, verifica-se um crescimento populacional nas cidades, aumento da demanda por moradia, emprego, serviços de saúde, educação, saneamento básico e lazer. Dadas as limitações econômicas e a própria incapacidade das gestões municipais em lidar com essas questões, observa-se um agravamento dos problemas sociais e ambientais, com repercussões diretas na qualidade de vida da população, sobretudo, daquela parcela menos abastada. Diante disso, políticas urbanas foram adotadas pelo Estado brasileiro no intuito de orientar o desenvolvimento urbano do país. Sob este prima, o presente artigo tem como objetivo apresentar algumas reflexões sobre a efetividade do Estatuto da Cidade (2001). Para tanto, inicialmente, discute-se a produção do espaço urbano e os agentes de sua produção, tomando por base as obras de Carlos (2008, 2011) e Corrêa (1989, 2011), em seguida, aborda-se a trajetória da Política Urbana no Brasil, e a exposição de algumas críticas direcionadas ao Estatuto da Cidade e o plano diretor, tendo como referência os escritos de Souza (2010) e Maricato (2001). Ao final, conclui-se que, apesar dos avanços e inovações presentes na nova lei, principalmente no que se referem à gestão democrática da cidade, questões essenciais como a permanência da estrutura fundiária e o combate à especulação imobiliária continuam irresolutas e constituem entraves ao desenvolvimento urbano justo e igualitário.   Palavras-chave: Produção do espaço. Agentes de produção. Política urbana. Estatuto da cidade. Plano diretor.   ABSTRACT   In Brazil, it turns out a population growth in cities, increasing demand for housing, employment, health services, education, basic sanitation and leisure. Given the economic limitations and the municipal administrations own inability to deal with those issues, it’s observed an aggravation of social and environmental problems, with direct repercussions on the population’s life quality, especially of that less wealthy portion. Given that, urban policies were adopted by the Brazilian State in order to guide the country urban development. Under this concept, this article aims to present some reflections on the City Statute (2001) effectiveness. To do so, initially discusses the urban space production and the agents of its production, based on Carlos’ (2008, 2011) and Corrêa’s (1989, 2011) works, then it approaches the Brazil Urban Politics trajectory, and the exposition of some criticisms directed to the City Statute and the master plan, having as reference the writings of Souza (2010) and Maricato (2001). In the end, it is concluded that, despite the advances and innovations present in the new law, especially regarding the city democratic management, essential issues such as the land structure permanence and the fight against real estate speculation remain unresolved and constitute obstacles to the fair and equitable urban development.   Keywords: Space production. Production agents. Urban policy.  City statute. Master plan.

scholarly journals The socialities of everyday urban walking and the ‘right to the city’

Urban Studies ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 55 (2) ◽  
pp. 296-315 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jennie Middleton
Keyword(s):  
Urban Space ◽  
Urban Politics ◽  
Cultural Theory ◽  
Right To The City ◽  
Low Carbon ◽  
Verbal Interactions ◽  
Social Mixing ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
The Right ◽  
The City

This paper explores the socialities of everyday urban walking. The paper begins from the starting contention that a wide range of social and cultural theory, urban planning and transport literatures position walking as a practice that unproblematically encourages ‘social mixing’, ‘community cohesion’ and ‘social interaction’. Through the analysis of in-depth interview and diary data from research on urban walking in London, this paper engages with a series of underexamined questions. What, for example, is the nature of social interactions on foot? Who are they with, what initiates them and how do they unfold? How do these interactions relate to how we understand the relationship between walking and urban space? Attention is drawn to verbal and non-verbal interactions of strangers as they walk and to the significance of the practical accomplishment of walking together. However, an examination of the discursive organisation of diary and interview data extends existing work concerning the practical organisation of everyday pedestrian mobilities by considering the significance of participants’ accounts of their walking experiences. This analytic move foregrounds a counterposition to dominant discourses surrounding everyday walking practices that is situated in the context of broader concerns with everyday urban politics and the ‘right to the city’. This approach contributes to a clearer engagement with the socialities of urban walking whilst raising important questions concerning the ways in which particular walking discourses inform urban scholarship. The paper concludes that in the promotion of walking as a form of low-carbon active travel greater account should be taken of pedestrian encounters.

scholarly journals THE URBAN POOR in DHAKA: PERSPECTIVES ON THE RIGHT TO THE CITY

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Shamsul AREFIN ◽  
Tamanna RASHID
Keyword(s):  
Urban Space ◽  
Urban Poor ◽  
The State ◽  
Poor People ◽  
Economic Activities ◽  
Negotiation Strategies ◽  
The Poor ◽  
Role Of The State ◽  
The Right ◽  
The City

The urban poor experience serious discontents, harassment, eviction, police repression and local goons threatening when using urban space for living and livelihood purposes. This study pursues to understand the poor people’s negotiation strategies with different powerful agents who occupy money, muscleman and political affiliation. Following a mixed method approach, this study investigates the two biggest slums in Dhaka as case studies. Findings show that urban poor have to build different social-contract relations with various local agents as survival mechanisms while economic activities using urban space are considered to be illegal in Bangladesh. The role of the state is somewhat ambiguous in this regard. On the one hand, the state is not evicting the poor permanently from the city but it is repatriating them on other grounds and, on the other hand, it permits hundreds of informal intermediary agents to work for sustaining informal urban settlements for the poor people. We argue that these distinctive socio-structural arrangements in Dhaka city is hindering poor people from getting united and claiming their rights to the city while also not providing them proper opportunities to fully appropriate the urban space. These socio-economic relations need to be considered in order to make a just city for all, from the RTC perspective.

Residential experiences in times of shifting housing regimes in Istanbul

2020 ◽  
pp. 167-190
Author(s):  
Zeynep Enlil ◽  
İclal Dinçer
Keyword(s):  
Real Estate ◽  
Urban Space ◽  
Affordable Housing ◽  
Capital Accumulation ◽  
Urban Transformation ◽  
Right To The City ◽  
Real Estate Development ◽  
Housing Rights ◽  
The Right ◽  
The City

This chapter examines changing housing regimes in Istanbul. It analyses two forms of self-building that emerged as solutions improvised by people in response to the pressing housing need and became predominant modes of housing production since the 1950s, namely “gecekondu,” and “yap-sat” or “build-and-sell.” Although stimulated by governments for some decades, both of these self-regulated housing forms came to a point of expulsion under the new regime of capital accumulation based on aggressive real-estate development that has been adopted as part of neoliberal urban policies in Turkey since the 2000s. The frenzy for urban transformation accompanied by financialization of housing led to further commodification of housing and urban space, undermining the right to decent and affordable housing and quality urban space for every citizen, which gave rise to considerable dissent that culminated in the emergence of new urban movements in defence of housing rights and ‘right to the city.’

scholarly journals Seesaw of Spatial Metamorphosis in Aravind Adiga’s Last Man in Tower

2021 ◽  
Vol 18 (II) ◽  
pp. 59-72
Author(s):  
Sadaf Mehmood
Keyword(s):  
Urban Space ◽  
Capital Accumulation ◽  
Right To The City ◽  
Accumulation By Dispossession ◽  
City Space ◽  
Spatial Consciousness ◽  
Theoretical Frame ◽  
Last Man ◽  
The Right ◽  
The City

Urban space is inherently uneven. Economic pursuits and commercial integrity translate urban space into categorization of haves and have-nots.Neo-Marxists theorize spatial disequilibrium through the dynamics of capital accumulation.Analysis of Last Man in Tower by Aravind Adiga helps to explorecity space as a commodified place that serves the interests of capital accumulation by converting it as a space of differences, struggles and negotiations. While examining spatial alienation, I probe the making of urban other who experiences, evictions, and displacements followed by the development projects of capital accumulation in the theoretical frame of David Harvey’s accumulation by dispossession. The urban space expands and grows not for the urban other but for the elitist consumption. This directs the argument to inspect the creation of a critical spatial consciousness to assert the urban other’s right to the city. By retaliating to their evictions and dispossessions they devise strategies for remaking their space through their lived daily experiences. This has been supported by the theoretical lens of Henri Lefebvre’s “The right to the city”. The selected fiction defines uneven city space whereby the spatial metamorphosis dispossesses and displaces the urban other andraises critical spatial consciousness to obstruct subsequent displacements.

scholarly journals BRIDGING TOGETHER AUTHORITARIAN RIGHT-WING POLITICS AND NEOLIBERAL URBAN POLITICS: ISTANBUL’S BID FOR 2020 SUMMER OLYMPICS

2021 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
pp. 95-112
Author(s):  
YAVUZ YAVUZ
Keyword(s):  
Urban Space ◽  
Urban Politics ◽  
Urban Policy ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Mega Events ◽  
Sports Events ◽  
Urban Transformations ◽  
National Governments ◽  
The City ◽  
Bidding Process

This study aims to analyse the political impact of sports mega-events through urban lenses. Sports mega-events often come along with drastic transformations in the built environment of the city where they are held. Contemporary urban impact of the sports mega-events, with the increased role rested by local and/or national governments on the private sector in the organization, is highly interconnected with the neoliberal measures of selling out the urban space, undertaken for hosting the event. In terms of the hosts, there is an increasing shift towards the countries where right-wing authoritarian parties are in power. I argue that the promises of these governments guaranteeing more swift urban transformations to meet the infrastructure requirements of hosting these events cause this shift and in turn, right-wing authoritarian governments use these events as platforms for disseminating their ideologies.  This research aims to trace this trend, based on the example of İstanbul’s failed bid to host the 2020 Summer Olympics and the neoliberal urban policies in Turkey under the Justice and Development Party (AKP). By using the city master plan presented during the bidding process and the statements made by AKP officials, I aim to demonstrate how hosting international sports events in Turkey is undertaken as part of a neoliberal urban policy and how this is incorporated into a wider conservative-Islamist political project by the AKP.

scholarly journals O direito à cidade como fundamento normativo de garantia da inclusão digital no espaço urbano brasileiro / The right to the city as a guaranteeing normative ground of digital inclusion in the brazilian urban space

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (4) ◽  
pp. 225-246
Author(s):  
Betânia De Moraes Alfonsin ◽  
Bárbara Guerra Chala
Keyword(s):  
Urban Space ◽  
Urban Policy ◽  
Universal Access ◽  
Right To The City ◽  
The Internet ◽  
Digital Inclusion ◽  
Digital Inequality ◽  
The Government ◽  
The Right ◽  
The City

ResumoO presente estudo tem por escopo demonstrar a importância da imediata adoção de medidas de política urbana visando à universalização do acesso à internet e à inclusão digital, como forma de garantir o direito transindividual e transgeracional à cidade, notadamente após a pandemia do novo coronavírus, que acentuou e colocou em voga o fosso de desigualdade social entre os indivíduos que possuem e os que não possuem acesso à rede mundial de computadores em seu domicílio dentro de espaços geográficos que deveriam ofertar as mesmas condições aos seus habitantes. A esse efeito, é salientada inicialmente a importância da internet no contexto da atual sociedade de informação, assim como é demonstrada a desigualdade digital que assola o espaço urbano brasileiro. Após, o direito à cidade é apresentado como fundamento normativo de garantia da inclusão digital nas cidades brasileiras e é evidenciada a imprescindibilidade da adoção de medidas pelo poder público com o objetivo de promover a inclusão digital.Com essa finalidade, adotou-se a metodologia dedutiva e a técnica de pesquisa bibliográfica. Desse modo, concluiu-se que o acesso à internet constitui peça chave do desenvolvimento humano na era digital, sendo urgente a adoção de políticas públicas de democratização do acesso à internet, ao efeito de nivelar as oportunidades e possibilitar a equalização das desigualdades sociais.Palavras-chave: Desigualdade; Exclusão Digital; Direito à cidade; COVID-19; Internet. AbstractThe present study aims to demonstrate the importance of the immediate adoption of urban policy measures aiming at universal access to the internet and digital inclusion, as a way to guarantee the transindividual and transgenerational right to the city, notably after the pandemic of the new coronavirus (COVID-19) that accentuated and put the gap in social inequality between individuals who own and those who don’t have access to the internet at home within geographic spaces that should offer the same conditions to their inhabitants. To this effect, the importance of the internet in the current information society is highlighted, as well as the digital inequality that plagues the Brazilian urban space is demonstrated. Afterwards, the right to the city is presented as a normative basis for guaranteeing digital inclusion in Brazilian cities and the necessity of adopting measures by the government in order to promote digital inclusion is evidenced. For this purpose, the deductive methodology and the bibliographic research technique were adopted. It was concluded that access to the internet is a key part of human development in the digital age, and it is urgent to adopt public policies to democratize internet access, with the effect of leveling opportunities and enabling equalization of social inequalities.Keywords: Inequality; Digital Exclusion; Right to the city; COVID-19; Internet.

scholarly journals The End of the Right to the City: A Radical-Cooperative View

2021 ◽  
pp. 107808742110578
Author(s):  
Caleb Althorpe ◽  
Martin Horak
Keyword(s):  
Original Writing ◽  
Urban Politics ◽  
Urban Society ◽  
Social Needs ◽  
Urban Life ◽  
Right To The City ◽  
Social Difference ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Right ◽  
The City

Is the Right to the City (RTTC) still a useful framework for a transformative urban politics? Given recent scholarly criticism of its real-world applications and appropriations, in this paper, we argue that the transformative promise in the RTTC lies beyond its role as a framework for oppositional struggle, and in its normative ends. Building upon Henri Lefebvre's original writing on the subject, we develop a “radical-cooperative” conception of the RTTC. Such a view, which is grounded in the lived experiences of the current city, envisions an urban society in which inhabitants can pursue their material and social needs through self-governed cooperation across social difference. Growing and diversifying spaces and sectors of urban life that are decoupled from global capitalism are, we argue, necessary to create space for this inclusionary politics. While grassroots action is essential to this process, so is multi-scalar support from the state.

3. Intervening with Agriculture: A Case Study of Guerrilla Gardening in Kingston, Ontario

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Annie Crane
Keyword(s):  
Content Analysis ◽  
Urban Space ◽  
Urban Agriculture ◽  
Social Relations ◽  
Community Gardening ◽  
Spatial Justice ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
The Right ◽  
The City

The purpose of this study was to analyze guerrilla gardening’s relationship to urban space and contemporary notions of sustainability. To achieve this two case studies of urban agriculture, one of guerrilla gardening and one of community gardening were developed. Through this comparison, guerrilla gardening was framed as a method of spatial intervention, drawing in notions of spatial justice and the right to the city as initially theorized by Henri Lefebvre. The guerrilla gardening case study focuses on Dig Kingston, a project started by the researcher in June of 2010, and the community gardening case study will use the Oak Street Garden, the longest standing community garden in Kingston. The community gardening case study used content analysis and semi-structured long format interviews with relevant actors. The guerrilla gardening case study consisted primarily of action based research as well as content analysis and semi-structured long format interviews. By contributing to the small, but growing, number of accounts and research on guerrilla gardening this study can be used as a starting point to look into other forms of spatial intervention and how they relate to urban space and social relations. Furthermore, through the discussion of guerrilla gardening in an academic manner more legitimacy and weight will be given to it as a method of urban agriculture and interventionist tactic. On a wider scale, perhaps it could even contribute to answering the question of how we (as a society) can transform our cities and reengage in urban space.

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