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2017 | OriginalPaper | Chapter

3. São Paulo: The Illegal City

Author : Lucy Earle

Published in: Transgressive Citizenship and the Struggle for Social Justice

Publisher: Springer International Publishing

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Abstract

An examination of the relationship between São Paulo’s centre and periphery is provided through a brief history of the way São Paulo has been settled and a discussion of social and spatial segregation in the city today. An appreciation of the significance of the centre for the urban poor can only be achieved through an understanding of the state’s expulsion of low-income households to the peripheries, its neglect of these areas and the irregularity of so much of the city’s built space. This discussion also provides the context for the movements’ building occupations, which can be read as an extension of the way that land in the city has historically been acquired through illegal occupation.

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previous chapter Housing, Citizenship and the Right to the City
next chapter Social Movements in Brazil: Democratization and Politicization
Footnotes
1
The population of 239,820 recorded in the Census of 1900 was 7.5 times that of 1872. The population of the municipality of São Paulo grew at 14% per year in the final decade of the nineteenth century.
 
2
Source: Prefeitura Municipal de São Paulo.
 
4
http://​data.​worldbank.​org/​indicator/​SI.​POV.​GINI. Accessed 30th August 2015. A value of 0 represents complete equality; a value of 1, complete inequality.
 
5
Source: Le Monde Diplomatique, 20.02.15. http://​www.​diplomatique.​org.​br/​acervo.​php?​id=​3098. Accessed 30th August 2015.
 
7
The term ‘non-city’ or ‘não-cidade’ was used repeatedly by Rolnik in an interview, 17.07.07.
 
8
Translations of works published in Portuguese are my own.
 
9
This is a (now much contested) belief that Brazil has escaped the racial prejudice of other countries, particularly the United States, and that Brazilians do not view each other through the lens of race.
 
10
During the period of slavery, slaves and masters had lived in close proximity, albeit in very different conditions.
 
11
The Folha de São Paulo, 19.06.05, reports that between 1981 and 2000 the 13 central districts of the city showed negative growth rates. According to the paper, it is principally the middle and upper classes who are leaving the centre.
 
12
Although the term ‘clandestine’ is used generically, according to Grostein (1987), a clandestine subdivision is one that the authorities have no record of, while a subdivision deemed as irregular is known to the authorities but does not fulfil all the legal requirements. Before being included into the official city, residents would be unable to register ownership of either type of property and would not receive public services.
 
13
The difference between houses built on clandestine/irregular subdivisions and favelas is that, with subdivisions, there is some notion of property and purchase of title, whereas favelas are characterized by occupation, not purchase. However, the quality of construction and the extent of the urbanization of public areas may be very similar in both types of settlement (Grostein 1987: 19; Kowarick 1979).
 
14
The norm of property ownership, even amongst very low-income families, has significant implications for the work of the housing movements’ leaders today, who struggle to promote the concept of social rental to their members.
 
15
A parallel could be drawn with the relationship between the federal government and FIFA prior to the 2014 World Cup. The federal government provided the body with ‘tax breaks, a monopoly over advertising spaces, and a monopoly over sporting arenas that had been paid for with public money’ (Vainer 2013: 68), plus an ‘exclusion zone’ around stadiums and other ‘official competition locations’ within which FIFA would have exclusive control over the sale of goods and services (ANCPC 2012). The land speculation and rent hikes associated with World Cup infrastructure also find echoes in São Paulo’s earlier history.
 
16
This type of consistent but low-profile law-breaking that eventually leads to amnesties or modifications to the law is best understood as ‘rule evasion’ (Leitzel 2002). It is significantly different to the overt and politicized illegal activity characterized as ‘civil disobedience’ discussed in Chap. 7.
 
17
The percentage of the city’s population living in favelas has increased from 1% in 1970 to close to 17% in 2007. Source: O Estado de São Paulo, 14.07.07.
 
19
Residents of São Paulo city.
 
20
Source: IBGE 2010 Census. http://​www.​ibge.​gov.​br. Accessed 20th September 2015.
 
21
Discussed in detail in Chap. 6.
 
22
Marques and Torres explain this relationship by the fact that in Brazil employment is often secured through personal contacts. If an individual is living in a low-income neighbourhood where there are a large number of unemployed or ‘precariously’ employed people, he or she is less likely to find a job through these means. Substantial anecdotal evidence would suggest that employers discriminate against candidates who live in ‘bad areas’.
 
23
See the 2012 ‘virtual edition’ of Environment and Planning C (Vol. 30) for a collection of studies on mega sporting and cultural events published in the journal over the past decade. http://​www.​envplan.​com/​fulltext_​temp/​0/​c2012ed.​pdf
 
25
In his discussion of the impacts of the Olympics on Rio de Janeiro, Bruno Carvalho links the June 2013 protests in that city to the gap between the stated promises of transformation for all made by the government, and the failure of these transformations to materialize alongside mega-project infrastructure (Carvalho 2016).
 
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Metadata
Title
São Paulo: The Illegal City
Author
Lucy Earle
Copyright Year
2017
Book
Transgressive Citizenship and the Struggle for Social Justice

Print ISBN: 978-3-319-51399-7

Electronic ISBN: 978-3-319-51400-0

Copyright Year: 2017

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-51400-0_3