1. Metamorphoses of the Urban Order of the Brazilian Metropolis: The Case of Rio de Janeiro

The overall results of this program were grouped in the collection “Metropolis: urban transformations”, available at: http://​transformacoes.​observatoriodasm​etropoles.​net.

The use of the term ‘grammar’ expresses our intention to highlight the need to overcome a purely spatial reading of residential segregation, including the possible social meanings present in the interactions resulting from distancing and proximity carried out through the territory. In our view, this is only possible by reading the residential segregation from the acknowledgment of the institutionalized patterns that naturalize and legitimize hierarchies and inequalities of society. Such purpose has affinity with the works of Katzman (2007) on the understanding of the patterns of residential segregation in Latin America, of Souza (2004) on the foundations of social inequalities in Brazil, and of Nunes (1997) on the patterns of political relations between State and Society in Brazil.

The thesis of the inflection of urban order was analytically constructed and presented in Ribeiro (2013).

As Fernandes argued, our insertion in the expansion of the industrial-financial capitalism brings out the urban and metropolitan hegemony simultaneously on national territory, resulting in a dynamic concentration of material, human and technical resources in some cities “giving rise to typical phenomena of metropolization and satellization under dependent capitalism” (1976, p. 207).

It is worth to consider in this reflection the following description of Tavares on the territorial and demographic fundamentals of the conservative alliance that presided over the development of Brazilian capitalism: “The periodical resource to an authoritarian order seeks its State reasons both in the preservation of the national territory and in the support of capitalist expansion, in new frontiers of accumulation, where its role was to prevent open class struggle, of landowners and capital, and to ensure the submission of local or migrant populations, which spread throughout the vast Brazilian territory (…). In turn, the process of massive spatial displacements of rural-urban migrations of our populations and the radical changes in living conditions and exploitation of the workforce did not allow the formation of more homogeneous social classes, capable of a systematic confrontation that could lead to a systematic bourgeois order” (Tavares 1999, p. 457).

The concept of metropolization here used refers simultaneously to the demographic and productive concentration in three main agglomerations—São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro and, later, Belo Horizonte—creating a polarized urban network. See Ribeiro et al. (2011) and Lipetz (1989).

The classical literature on country/city migration in Brazil described this process as a social process in which social bonds held in the point of departure are present in the point of arrival creating urban territories that, despite precariousness and poverty, were more than an agglomeration of individuals. Singer, for example, points out in his well-known study on the theme: “The adaptation of the newly arrived migrant to a social milieu occurs often through mutual aid mechanisms and solidarity of older migrants” (Singer 1975, p. 55).

Lessa and Dain so defined the Holy Alliance: “(…) a community and a convergence of interests between dominant capital in orbits of non-industrial capital and a branch system in industrial circuit. They are systematic relations of solidarity in the joint expansion of existing capital in that national space of accumulation, a space that respects a “specialization”, a kind of division of space, in accordance with orbits, by capitals from different sources. This pact is constituted with the presence of the State” (Lessa and Dain 1984, p. 254).

One of the reasons for Rio de Janeiro’s low industrial dynamism stems from the huge weight on its structure resulting from sectors that have become obsolete in the successive technological revolutions, as identified by Dain (1990). The famous debate on Rio de Janeiro’s economic drain was enriched by the recent research of Silva (2012) and Sobral (2013).

In these works, the morphology of the metropolitan territory was thus described: core: the commercial and financial central area—old historic core, which expanded towards the ocean edge (the “South Zone”) and to the inner area (Tijuca, Vila Isabel, São Cristóvão and Caju neighborhoods), in addition to Downtown and the South Zone of Niterói; near periphery: suburbs of the axis Madureira of the line of Central do Brasil railway and of the axis Irajá of the old Leopoldina railway, in addition to the North Zone of Niterói. Classically, Barra da Tijuca is included in this space; intermediate periphery: Baixada Fluminense, part of Magé and São Gonçalo; distant periphery: according to the terms used at that time, it would be the conurbation area.

We used as symbolic markers of each cycle the creative and relevant metaphors built by Lessa (2000) to symbolize the nature of the process of urban development in Rio de Janeiro in the twentieth century.

In the present moment we live the emergence of a new cycle of urban accumulation founded in the recovery of the old central area of the city of Rio de Janeiro, as described by Britto (2015).

The concept of the New Professional Middle Class here mentioned is used similarly to the concept formulated by Goldthorpe (1980) in the ‘Higher-Grade Professionals’ category and by Boltanski (1982) in the ‘Cadre’ category. In short, it is worth stating that this is a relatively heterogeneous group in terms of its professional activity, but is cohesive in terms of the position it occupies in the social space. In addition to its high education level, it is characterized by exercising executive functions of command mainly in the private sector, but also in the public sector.

It is the understanding of this fact that gives meaning to the famous statement of Francisco de Oliveira, in a text written in 1982 when the urban began to emerge as a political question under the impetus of movements addressed to redemocratization: “I would summarize, stating that nowadays, in Brazil, the urban is the middle classes, that is, cities are par excellence—retrieving the question of outsourcing—under this angle—the urban expression of this new class, where the weight of the middle classes emerge with enormous strength, with enormous gravitation, in view of the type of organization that the international capitalism created when designing its companies within Brazilian society. It is also important from a political point of view. The enormous gravitation of the middle classes in Brazil, seen from another aspect, is one of the bases of authoritarianism of the Brazilian society. From the urban point of view, from its relations with the State and the urban, these middle classes have created demands within cities. And the State today, from the point of view of its relation with the urban, among other important aspects, I point out, is mostly determined by the demand of the middle classes within the city (Oliveira 1982, p. 25)”.

See the description of this methodology in Ribeiro and Ribeiro (2013) available at: http://​www.​observatoriodasm​etropoles.​net/​index.​php?​option=​com_​k2&​view=​item&​id=​604:​e-book-an%C3A1lise-social-do-territ%C3%B3rio&​Itemid=​167&​lang=​en.

We do not have systematic and reliable statistics on the real estate valuation that took place. Taking as reference the FIPE ZAP index (Economic Research Institute Foundation/ZAP real estate) raised by Cardoso and Lago (2015) between 2008 and 2013, the average selling price amounted to 164.7%, against an increase of 32.5% of the IGP-M (General Index of Prices in the Market) in the period considered. The values of rents for two-bedroom type of buildings (the predominant type) also showed a significant increase along the second half of the decade, which accelerated from 2007/2008 onwards. The rise in prices in Rio de Janeiro, accumulated until 2014, was 137%, against a IGP-M growth of 42.8%.

It was a significant expansion of the provision by banks of the SBPE and the housing system resources due to the growth in the issuance of Real Estate Receivables Certificate and creation of Real Estate Funds.

An illustration of our argument: the per capita income of a graduated professional residing in Lagoa Rodrigo de Freitas neighborhood in the South Zone of Rio is 6 times greater than the income of an equivalent graduated professional residing in the municipality of Duque de Caxias, a typical consolidated suburban space. The dissociation between education, social position and social status in contemporary metropolitan Brazil was competently evidenced on the Doctoral Thesis of Marcelo Gomes Ribeiro titled “Education, Class Position and Territory: an analysis of income inequality in metropolitan regions of Brazil”. See: Ribeiro (2012).

Data are from the demographic censuses and were tabulated by Cavalieri and Vial (2012).

The inequalities in life urban conditions expressed on this map were estimated through the Urban Well-Being Index (Índice do Bem-Estar Urbano—IBEU) produced by the Observatório das Metrópoles. See: http://​www.​observatoriodasm​etropoles.​net/​index.​php?​option=​com_​k2&​view=​item&​id=​642%3Alan%C3%A7amento-do-livro-%E2%80%9C%C3%ADndice-de-bem-estar-urbano-%E2%80%93-ibeu%E2%80%9D&​Itemid=​167&​lang=​pt.

The Metropolitan Region of Rio de Janeiro (MRRJ) comprises 20 municipalities containing a total of 338 weighting areas and a population of 11,872,164 inhabitants, but with very heterogeneous urban well-being characteristics.

See, for example, Marques (1998).

The concept of oligarchic wealth was created by Roy Harrod and used by Hirsch (1976) to formulate a theory about the social limits to growth. There would be, according to the author, two different types of wealth referred to as “democratic” and “oligarchic”. The first type is the dominance over resources that, in principle, are available to everybody in a direct relation with the intensity and efficiency of his/her efforts. Oligarchic wealth, on the other hand, has no relationship with efforts and is never available to everybody.