Metropolitan governance in the context of dynamic urbanization: the case of Brazil (original) (raw)

This study discusses the evolvement of metropolitan governance in Brazil and uses greater São Paulo as an in-depth case study to demonstrate how metropolitan governance is organized in a megacity region in the Global South. This is of interest as many publications in this specific academic field focus on European or North American city regions that are, on average, smaller in size and part of multi-level governance systems. Hence, many theoretical positions that are established in the scholarly debate do not work well in the context of megacities. The study will describe how the metropolitan governance arrangement in greater São Paulo evolved and reflected on the setbacks and success of metropolitan planning and policies in the context of uncertain state support. Metropolitan regions have been established in Brazil by the military regime in the mid-1970s for industrialization and comprehensive top-down planning. After the fall of the regime in the 1980s, the question of metropolitan...