The Right to the City

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Planning Theory and Practice on Brazil’s Plan for a More Equal City

The recent riots in Brazil have highlighted a country of grand policies and ideas and their complex implementation. 
Brazil’s Right to the City initiative drew on the ideals of the global ‘right to the city movement’ and aimed to achieve social justice in a country notorious for spatially-segregated, unequal cities. 

In this issue of Planning Theory and Practice, Abigail Friendly’s paper ‘The Right to the City: Theory and Practice in Brazil’ examines the challenges of implementing this policy in Niterói, Rio de Janeiro State.  

The paper explores the application of an undoubtedly innovative 2001 national Brazilian law: the Statute of the City. Mandating participation in master planning and establishing urban development tools for cities to use to promote social justice in planning, the experience has been called both innovative and inspiring.

The study of the application of the Statute in a mid-sized Brazilian city illustrates the gap between rhetoric and practice. Despite the many challenges raised by this case and others, Brazil’s valiant attempt to apply the right to the city in a challenging urban context must be praised.

In the case of Niterói, participatory planning had been implemented since the 1990s with the deliberate intention of promoting social justice and the right to the city.

For Niterói’s former mayor, the idea from the beginning was very clear: “What doesn't work is you stay with what already exists, with sewage running down the stairs here and on the side, luxury buildings and such; so the building will pay for that luxury. So the idea was this, it was to use the tools in order for you to promote social justice, in a clear manner…”

In the light of recent events this is a fascinating read for planning practitioners and researchers.  The paper offers a nuanced examination of the theory and practice of an unprecedented urban policy currently in use in Brazil, suggesting possibilities for how the right to the city can be guaranteed for all. 

The article is available free to download at http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14649357.2013.783098

Media Contact: Iain Matthews, Marketing Executive, Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group, 4 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN    
Email: Iain.Matthews@tandf.co.uk   Website: www.tandfonline.com/rptp

Planning Theory & Practice Journal

Planning Theory & Practice provides an international focus for the development of theory and practice in spatial planning and a forum to promote the policy dimensions of space and place. Published four times a year in conjunction with the Royal Town Planning Institute, London, it publishes original articles and review papers from both academics and practitioners with the aim of encouraging more effective, two-way communication between theory and practice. The Editors invite robustly researched papers which raise issues at the leading edge of planning theory and practice, and welcome papers on controversial subjects. Contributors in the early stages of their academic careers are encouraged, as are rejoinders to items previously published. Authors are requested to draw out the wider significance of their particular contribution and to write in a clear style, accessible to a broad, international audience.

The journal’s innovative Interface section promotes dialogue between the academic and practitioner communities, encouraging analytical reflection on practice and practical engagement with theory. Each issue of Interface offers a multifaceted investigation of a topical theme, in the form of a series of contributions reflecting on an issue from different perspectives.

To find out more, please visit: www.tandfonline.com/rptp

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