Implementing Progressive Planning in Brazil: Understanding the Gap between Rhetoric and Practice

This dissertation explores the juxtaposition between an innovative national policy underpinned by concepts of the right to the city and social justice, and the implementation of that law at the local level, with variable results. Approved in 2001 following the growth of the urban reform movements and a new 'citizens' Constitution in 1988, the Statute of the City explicitly recognized the 'right to the city,' understood as the right to participate in urban life. In the Brazilian context, this means a combination of the 'social function of property and of the city' (the regulation of urban development as a public issue rather than a private one) and the democratic management of cities. The Statute regulates the 1988 Constitution's chapter on urban policy, mandates institutionalized participation in planning processes including citizen councils, large-scale forums and public hearings, and aims to promote social justice by alleviating the array of complex problems faced by Brazilian cities. Using a combination of semi-structured interviews, document analysis and observation, I focus on one case of the politics of implementing the progressive policy tools of the Statute of the City: the city of Niterói, Rio de Janeiro State. In my research, four intertwining themes explore how power relations and civil society organization influence the capacity to implement more participatory and socially just planning. While a gap exists between the rhetoric of the Statute and local practice, my findings suggest that the changes made as a result of the new planning directives of the Statute need to be seen as a long-term process. Indeed, the Statute is extraordinary in the Brazilian context, given high levels of poverty and socio-spatial inequality, violence and the aftermath of twenty years of dictatorship.Ph.D