Infraestrutura urbana, serviços urbanos e equipamentos coletivos

Gender differentials in commuting have been reported in the literature, often couched within the household responsibility hypothesis. This hypothesis attributes shorter commutes to females due to a disproportionate load of household responsibilities. The objective of the present study is to report research regarding commuting time in São Paulo Metropolitan Region, in Brazil. Based on microdata from the Demographic Census of 2010 the focus of the present study is on the role of marital status and presence of dependents on gender differentials in commuting time. Specifically, the research seeks to determine whether there is empirical support in this region for the household responsibility hypothesis. The results suggest that marital status exerts a stronger influence on the commuting time of working women, with the number of dependents (children and elderly) exerting a smaller influence on commuting time. Gender differentials are observed also for single and formerly married working females, which suggests other cultural or environmental factors not fully captured by the household responsibility hypothesis. Most studies, however, are set in North America. This research contributes towards the development of a broader, international knowledge foundation regarding gender and commuting patterns.

In the past decades, when São Paulo became the national manufacturing centre, it has experienced great population growth. Since then, many housing problems have emerged. In addition, the difficulties that inner cities face in attracting jobs and maintaining economic activities are particularly challenging. Indeed, even if many cities have successfully regenerated their central areas, the so-called inner city problem is still very much alive in the case of São Paulo. As a result although the city centre has abundant urban infrastructure it still has plenty of vacant spaces, including residential buildings. One could say that São Paulo’s city centre is characterised by a large number of empty spaces in an area that is simultaneously crowded with buildings and urban facilities. This paper intends to contribute to the empirical analysis of the determinants of vacancy rates, with a particular focus on historical city centres, using São Paulo Metropolitan Area as our case study. Our empirical analysis relies on district-level data for the years 2000 and 2010, and combines standard spatial econometric methods with hedonic modelling. Our results suggest that there are three main groups of determinants: individual buildings characteristics, mobility of households and neighbourhood quality. We find evidence that the historic central city is a distinctive submarket, needing special urban policies. Its determinants work differently when compared with the housing markets of other areas across the city.

This paper presents an innovative comparison that works creatively with the entangled spatialities of policy mobilities, drawing on a city-to-city cooperation between São Paulo (Brazil) and eThekwini (South Africa) municipalities for the exchange of slum upgrading expertise. The proposed comparative tactic entails tracing the establishment of this connection in order to disassemble the constituent flows and localities merged within it. Subsequently, by posing questions to one another, a relational comparison of the trajectory of slum upgrading policy in each locality is composed, unearthing the political and institutional conditions that preceded the existence of the connection per se. In that sense, both eThekwini and São Paulo are considered equivalent starting points from which local actors engaged in circulating ideas and mobilised slum upgrading policies. This paper not only brings a fresh approach to comparative methods – incorporating political contexts and their extensive overlapping networks of relations alongside a focus on particular policy trajectories – but also contributes to furthering global urban studies in two other ways. First, it provides insight into the processes by which policies are put on the move and localised (or not). Second, it demonstrates how repeated instances of urban practice may be unravelled by allowing each context of policy formation, with its distinctive trajectory of slum upgrading, to speak to one another. In this regard, the comparative analysis identified how, in both São Paulo and eThekwini, the consolidation of democracy was followed by the development of more technocratic approaches to the detriment of earlier slum upgrading initiatives focussed on community empowerment.

Scholars have documented how financial capital has produced displacement driven by hypermodern urban spaces characterised by luxury and exclusivity. In this article we highlight how hypermodern public–private partnerships (PPPs) often re-write history, creating a futuristic global city image. Our case study of Porto Maravilha’s PPP reviews a dualistic narrative in the context of changes in Rio de Janeiro in preparation for the 2014 World Cup and 2016 Olympics. Porto Maravilha aimed to position Rio de Janeiro as a centre of global competition and capital. However, this narrative re-framed the history of the transatlantic slave trade through discursive tactics that diluted and undermined the brutality of slavery in Rio’s port. Furthermore, this hypermodern PPP reinforced the post-abolition discriminatory urban planning policies that dislodged Africans and Afro-Brazilians from their places of residence, work and culture in the port district. The result is the erasure of the experiences of Black Brazilians in the port area for touristic consumption, selling the city on the world stage. Given this contradiction, we develop the concept of ‘legacy participation’ to secure the rights of Afro-Brazilians and their organisations to make decisions about their own territory.

The Brazilian city of Curitiba has long been recognised as an exemplary success in urban planning, particularly its sustainable urban transport, with modal splits strongly favouring public transit. Its success was achieved principally through rigorous and detailed planning, beginning in the 1970s, using policy tools that have been described, and sometimes criticised, as technocratic. After 40 years of a quite successful experience in transport planning and implementation, Curitiba, like many world cities, faces new challenges, particularly in the form of metropolitanisation and increased aspirations for citizen participation. In this paper we investigate which policy tools are being used to face these emerging challenges in Curitiba, whether they are the same as those used in the past and which led the city to be a recognised urban transport success case, or different, more flexible and participative tools presumed to be more in tune with the emerging context of metropolitanisation and increased demands for participation. The answer, coming from interviews within Curitiba transport representatives, current literature review and limited comparisons with other successful transport cities of the Americas, suggests a continuation of Curitiba’s proactive format, one which has led to its past successes, with some modest overtures to more interactive and participatory policy tools.

This paper presents the Relational Urban Mobility Injustice framework for analysing urban accessibility and mobility, aiming to uncover critical, often overlooked injustices in the mobility system. Through reevaluating transport outcomes, we distinguish regimes of (im)mobility and expose the oppressive interdependence among them that mirrors and reinforces injustices across social groups. Using empirical data from public transport in São Paulo as a proof of concept, we show how transport conditions in terms of fare costs and crowding are shaped by social markers such as class and race. Areas predominantly inhabited by white residents feature lower crowding (below six passengers/m²) and reduced fares (under nine Brazilian reals), whereas zones primarily occupied by lower-class, black residents endure overcrowding and higher fares (over 18 Brazilian reals), inadvertently subsidising transportation for upper class and white areas. These dynamics demonstrate how deeply entwined conditions of precarity and privilege may be within a public transport system. Our argument and findings advocate for a paradigm shift in urban transport research, emphasising the oppression between social groups within the urban mobility systems.