The process of structural adjustment following the Third-World debt crisis in the early 1980s-and still persisting as a permanent adjustment-seems to have produced a corresponding "urban adjustment". In both the structural and urban adjustments, the roles of the World Bank and, in Latin America, of the IDB, in partnership with local elites and technocracies, were decisive. Despite of the strong interference of the two financial institutions with public policies in the developing world, their strategies for action represent a new theme that has not been fully surveyed by academic research. The purpose of this paper is to study the type of model for a city defended by these institutions, as well as the meaning of this model. In my Master's dissertation at FAUUSP, I found that World Bank and IDB loans-which come to public managers as a "salvation" in times of crises-are not "neutral" and carry with them an agenda: they are intended to model given standards for the use of public resources and for the organization of governments. Both institutions have disseminated public policies that follow corporate profitability criteria and a public management model based on outsourcing, which is subject to private technical staffs from project management companies, private foundations, NGOs, and numerous consultants. Their purpose is to change some local governments in developing countries-particularly those that include territories that support transnational business-into administrative structures that are increasingly trained to respond to big private interests and are free from any commitment to real democracy.
ResumoO presente artigo é um balanço da produção pioneira de intelectuais marxistas que, na década de 1970, procuraram entender os paradoxos do crescimento de São Paulo e, mais amplamente, ensaiaram as primeiras formulações de uma teoria crítica da urbanização na periferia do capitalismo. Agrupados em torno do Cebrap e da FAU-USP, a urgência política do momento, somada à ascendência da interpretação de Manuel Castells, levou-os majoritariamente a encarar a cidade como espaço de consumo coletivo e luta social em torno da reprodução da classe trabalhadora. Mas a descoberta empírica da cidade permitiu que o urbano fosse, ao fim, reconhecido não apenas como lócus mas como forma da expansão capitalista.PALAVRAS-CHAVE: Questão urbana; estruturalismo francês; teoria crítica; São Paulo. AbstRActThis article presents a critical assessment of the pioneering production of Marxist intellectuals who, in the 1970s, attempted to understand the paradoxes of São Paulo' s urban growth. More generally, these intellectuals also tried to sketch a critical theory about urbanization at the periphery of capitalism. Gathered around two institutions -Cebrap (Brazilian Center for Analysis and Planning) and FAU-USP (School of Architecture at the University of Sao Paulo) -they were compelled by the political urgency of that historical era, and informed by the increasing influence of Manuel Castells' structuralist framework. As a result, they understood the city as a space of collective consumption, and also of social struggle around the reproduction of the working classes. However, the empirical exploration of the city allowed some of them to finally see the urban realm not only as the locus but also as the form of capitalist expansion.KEYWORDS: Urban question; French structuralism; critical theory; São Paulo.[1] Agradeço aos comentários e sugestões dos professores Paulo César Xavier Pereira, Ermínia Maricato e do saudoso orientador Jorge Oseki (in memoriam).No início dos anos 1970, diante do já acelerado processo de modernização e urbanização na América Latina, alguns intelectuais marxistas latino-americanos percebem a importância de se iniciar o que poderia vir a ser uma teoria da urbanização na periferia do capitalismo. Paralelamente à crítica ao pensamento da Cepal (Comissão Econômica para a América Latina e o Caribe), que deu origem a novas interpretações sobre dependência e subdesenvolvimento, atraso e modernização, estes intelectuais passaram a mencionar os paradoxos visíveis nas cidades em crescimento como exemplos de seus textos e mesmo a dedicar ensaios e pesquisas sobre o tema.
Arquitetura contemporânea; pós-modernismo; projeto digital; canteiro-de-obras; renda monopolista; indústria do turismo; Frank Gehry.
This essay discusses some key ideas and debates about urban studies in Brazil, considered historiographically, from the mid-1900s to the present. It presents the main components and particularities of what emerges as the Brazilian matrix of urban studies, interrogating the most influential work in the field with the country’s own experiences of industrialisation and urbanisation. It discusses some key urban debates of the 21st century, namely new planning models associated with globalisation, global mega-events, public–private partnerships, inner-city gentrification, housing and city financialisation, rising forms of urban warfare and social control in slums (favelas), and new activisms and urban insurgencies. Through this analysis, we point to contradictions and tensions in relation to European and North American urban theory, calling for the need to formulate new categories and hypotheses to better understand the unequal and extreme processes resulting from violent expansion of capitalist relations over the entire planet, and comment on the new practices and forms of social mobilisation emerging from turbulent contexts.
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