Mobilizing social housing for urban revalorization: reflections on Rio de Janeiro’s downtown area
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Date
2016
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AESOP
Abstract
The presentation aims to discuss how social housing is being considered as an instrument for urban revalorization of Rio de Janeiro’s downtown districts. I understand urban revalorization as a process that combines a set of measures implemented by state actors – generally in partnership with private sector and “quangos” – to encourage real estate market activity of delimited urban spaces that experienced a decline in land values. These measures may include changes in land use legislation, remaking of built environment, construction or renovation of infrastructures, subsidies for investors, symbolic re-signification through marketing strategies and so on. Like in many other Brazilian metropolises during the second half of the 20th century, the districts in downtown Rio de Janeiro faced expressive processes of depopulation, degradation of the built environment and impoverishment of local inhabitants. In the last two decades national and local authorities launched a plethora of “revitalization” plans, programs and target interventions – generally inspired by international “successful cases” – in quest to promote the interest of private investors in those districts. Meanwhile, it was observed an intensification of “right to the city” social movements struggling for a more inclusive agenda in state interventions for the downtown area. If, historically, social struggles for affordable housing were concentrated in the fringes of Rio de Janeiro metropolis, latterly downtown districts have been accommodating a significant portion of those movements.
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Proceedings of the IV World Planning Schools Congress, July 3-8th, 2016 : Global crisis, planning and challenges to spatial justice in the north and in the south
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