The Municipality in the Face of Regional Planning: Inter-American Ideas in the 1950s

Abstract

This article examines the debate that took place in São Paulo during the 1st Inter-American Seminar on Municipal Studies, held in 1958, under the coordination of Antônio Delorenzo Neto. The main thrust of the analysis is focused on the discussion amongst the participants regarding the concepts of planning and planification in the session “The municipality in the face of regional planning”, after the presentation of the conference La organización del plan regulador de la ciudad de Buenos Aires y el planeamento del gran Buenos Aires. Similarly, the article also discusses, albeit indirectly and in more general terms, the trajectory, during the 1950s and 1960s, of Antônio Delorenzo Neto, creator of the abovementioned seminar, which occurred at the Instituto de Estudos Municipais da Escola Livre de Sociologia e Política in São Paulo. It was during this period that his original professional career in the field of law approached the field of planning in order to consider municipal development both in Brazil and across Latin America.