Trapped by the land? Change and continuity in the provision of social housing in Brazil (original) (raw)
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Brasilia represents a turning point in the history of town planning and it is undoubtedly the most expressive example of a city in which the paradigms of the CIAMs-International Congresses of Modern Architecture were implemented to their fullest extent. The Plano Piloto of Brasilia is the only 20th century urban area, that was elected as a patrimony of humanity by UNESCO. The city experienced a rapid development but after thirty-two years since it was officially inaugurated, it presents features similar to other metropolises in the Developing World: high rates of population growth, housing shortage, squatter settlements, urban struggles, inappropriate public policies etc. In this paper, the author makes a critical review of the development of the city, emphasizing low income housing policies, stressing the conflicts of the planning process with emerging social-political movements of residents. Theoretical parameters and development premises of the new Brazilian capital are analyzed. It is argued that these parameters have decisively influenced further urban policies of the government, which created a series of constraints on the urban poor. The text provides evidence that a critical housing shortage has accompanied the development of Brasilia and that it is directly associated with restrictive public policies towards land, housing, infrastructure and employment. BRASILIA, FROM CONCEPT TO METROPOLIS: a critique from the perspective of low income housing policies.
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The last decade (2000-2010) has been characterized by the resumption of the protagonism of housing policy in Brazil, with the consolidation of instruments and policies that have formed a consistent framework to address the issue in the country. However, despite the concentration of the problem in metropolitan areas, the policy and the national housing plan have essentially adopted municipal strategies. Given this context, how can the obstacles and limits to the regional articulation of municipal housing policies in metropolitan regions be discussed? We start from the assumption that, while regional articulation is inevitable, the planning and management arrangements and instruments available have structural limitations that make the integration of municipal policies unfeasible. To discuss this issue, a previous question must be answered: how to investigate the factors that condition the integration of housing policies in metropolitan regions? This is the question that this article seeks to answer, resulting in the proposition of an analytical investigative structure that underlies future studies in this field.