Urbans Dynamics and Environment: Reflections From the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development

Abstract

Considering the current debate on urban issues, in particular linked to the challenges and prospects of urban growth with the right balance and respect for the environment, this paper seeks to reflect on the environmental imperative allied to the urban dynamics of cities and human settlements, contextualized to what the 2030 Agenda proposes towards sustainable cities. Therefore is discussed in the first chapter the right to the city contextualized to the contemporary economic and social imperatives. The second chapter has considerations about the environmental issue integrated to the urban sphere aligned with the goals contained in the objectives for sustainable development. It is observed that the urban planning adopted by the public and private agents has been guided by an inversion, by which the use value of dwellings becomes submissive to the exchange value in the contemporary capitalism, which therefore uses environmental imperatives as a form of marketing, with merely market objectives. Therefore, it is concluded that the effectiveness of the right to the inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable city required by 2030 Agenda depends on political (re)orientations and engagement - in the sense of resistance - of the excluded social classes who experience the consequences of the environmental impacts resulting from the process of contemporary neoliberal urbanization.