Continuities and Changes in the Diversification of Public Housing

Continuity and Change of Urban Policies in São Paulo: Resilience, Latency, and Reanimation

“…The program established new procedures and standards for project design and infrastructure engineering works. This was developed by staff directly hired by the administration or contracted through consulting firms, coming directly from civil society-from social movements, professional organizations, and academia (Marques and Pulhez 2021).…”

“…Through this program, the administration upgraded 22 favelas inhabited by 6,100 families, leaving other 74 favelas involving 22,500 families with work in progress at the end of administration (Marques and Pulhez 2021;Amaral 2002;Bonduki 2000). In the last days of the administration, the municipality signed a contract with the Inter-American Development Bank-IDB-for a large-scale urban and environmental recuperation program around a major water source for the city that is completely occupied, including by precarious settlements.…”

“…Although announced as a slum upgrading program, this project involved constructing new (vertical) housing units at the borders of some of the most visible favelas but leaving their largest sections with no interventions. The program planned to construct 5,468 units in 23 favelas during this mayoral term (Amaral 2002;Marques and Pulhez 2021), but these were still under construction through the following two administrations. After some hesitation during the first year and under considerable pressure from the international donor, the administration also started the slum upgrading projects of the large-scale environmental program signed in the previous administration (Guarapiranga).…”

“…In terms of slum upgrading policies, Pitta continued the Cingapura and the Guarapiranga projects, completing 12,266 housing units and upgrading 75 favelas with 8,500 families, but also leaving other 4,439 housing units under construction (Sehab 2000). The third program called Procav dedicated to channeling small rivers impacted around 1,500 families in 7 upgraded favelas located in riverbeds (Marques and Pulhez 2021). Therefore, during these two R administrations, multilevel politics (international funding in this case) was particularly relevant for the creation of resilience.…”

“…The new program was named Bairro Legal and intended to produce upgrading and land regularization and reinforcement in surrounding infrastructure and equipment, although this ambition was not achieved (Sehab 2003). Bairro Legal and Guarapiranga (now renamed as Mananciais) impacted together 90 favelas with approximately 140,000 families (Marques and Pulhez 2021). These activities were developed by many technicians who had worked during the Erundina government and stayed in civil society in the previous two governments and other municipal administrations of the same party.…”