Construção civil

This paper analyses trends in the living conditions of slum and non-slum populations over the period 1990–2003, using urban and slum indicators from several developing world cities. It explains why where a person lives might condition his/her general health and household vulnerability. The data used are from UN-Habitat’s Global Urban Observatory database for 188 cities belonging to 8 different Millennium Development Goals Regions. The study provides evidence of a general improvement in various slum indicators, such as durable structures, access to safe water and access to improved sanitation. However, although there has been a decrease in under-5 mortality at city level, we observe that the same indicator can be up to five times higher for slum than for non-slum groups. We conclude that this evidence supports the importance of slum improvement and highlights this issue as one of the major challenges that a predominantly urbanized world faces.

This article discusses the relationship between segregation and urban redevelopment projects through an analysis of São Paulo's metropolis. Our assumption is that segregation is one of the components of capitalist urban space, since it is produced as a commodity, which determines its fragmentation and hierarchy. In the peripheral countries, this condition prevents thousands of people to live with dignity. In recent decades, the space production has become a possibility of investment for the capital in crisis. This situation reveals the importance of the urban renewal projects, because they reinforce public and private investments in specific areas of the cities, increasing its valuation. In this article, the analysis of Nova Luz Project shows that the segregation is a content of contemporary urbanism and that the city's production process is increasingly tied to the private interests and to the capital.

Appropriate finance can greatly increase the speed and lower the cost of incremental housing - the process used by much of the low/moderate-income majority of most developing countries to acquire shelter. Informal finance continues to dominate the funding of incremental housing. However, new sources have developed including housing microfinance, community-based finance savings and loan groups, and consumer credit for building materials. This paper examines informal and formal finance for incremental housing and makes recommendations for the vast expansion necessary to meet the affordable housing demand from the huge urban wave in developing countries projected over the next three decades.

This paper presents one of the case studies of the international applied research project ‘‘Promoting Decent Work in Construction and Related Services: the Key Role of Local Authorities’’. An article in this special issue presents the aims, scope, methodology and rationale of this research project. The purpose of this article is to present the local employment situation in Santo André, using some indicators of the four key components of decent work. In this case study, quantitative data analysis included official statistics at both the national and local levels. In addition, qualitative information was collected by interviews with key actors of different institutions involved in the construction sector, namely staff of the Municipality of Santo André, workers’ unions and employers’ associations. The research also analysed the initiatives of the municipal authorities in Santo André to promote employment in the construction sector and related services. Special attention has been attributed to the Santo André Mais Igual (SAMI) programme, because it has been selected as an example of ‘‘best practice’’ for urban upgrading and social inclusion.

Over the past decade there has been a sudden, extraordinarily large, and simultaneous expansion of multi-billion dollar housing programs in many emerging and developing economies. This shift occurred after a long period of limited public involvement in social housing production. Yet, despite the fact that countries and cities have introduced such large-scale programs, there has been little independent analysis of the rationale, efficacy and potential long-term effects of these interventions. Adopting a perspective that expands beyond typical public finance approaches, this paper examines the renewed shift in public housing provision. It provides an outlook of recent experiences in housing provision, showcases general trends in housing, proposes an evaluation framework, and offers a series of recommendations aiming at strengthening the programs. The paper concludes that if large-scale housing assistance is to help accommodate the almost 2 billion additional people who will live in cities over the next 35 years, as well as help to address the growing housing affordability issues, much more attention should be paid to the lasting effects that such programs can have on the structure of cities for generations to come.

More than half of the world's population currently resides in urban areas. In the majority of developing countries slums are a defining part of the urban scape. Their supply with energy, basic infrastructure, among others is one of the main challenges of modern civilizations. To provide an optimal supply, the spatial patterns of slums in cities have to be explored. While most of current literature is focused on inter-urban dynamics, this paper is focused on intra-urban pattern (i.e. the spatial pattern of morphological slums within a city) and its link to the inter-urban ones. Therefore, census and remote sensing data are analyzed to create rank size distributions of morphological slums in different cities of developing countries. The observations were compared to rank size distributions of cities in a respective developing country. It is found that typical inter-urban pattern can be transferred to intra-urban pattern. Surprisingly is the fact that the size of slums is independent from city and global region in the analyzed cities. The slums in Mumbai, Manila, Rio de Janeiro and Cape Town have an average area of 0.016 km2 with a standard deviation of only 0.004 km2 .

Upgrading existing social housing (SH) requires user-centred participatory processes to promote values. Comparative case studies in Brazil, Germany, the Netherlands, and the UK are presented. Living Labs (LLs) were conducted for the delivery of user values and to promote an informed decision-making process. Tools and LL activities were tested to engage stakeholders in the upgrading process, support the co-creation of solutions and address social and societal challenges. The main research aims were to facilitate SH upgrading processes focusing on the delivery of value for users, achieving end-user empowerment, as well as assessing participatory decisionmaking through LLs. Research goals were achieved in each case study setting. The evaluation of specific cases informed a conceptual framework and guidelines to facilitate upgrading through LLs in varied SH landscapes.

Cities worldwide face the challenge of balancing densification and open space provision. However, few studies investigate how urban morphology influences that balance across different cities and continents. We identified eight urban morphological types characterizing high-density residential areas in São Paulo, Brasília (Brazil), and Berlin (Germany) and assessed those morphologies using seven indicators: population density, housing density, Floor Space Index (FSI), Ground Space Index (GSI), average building height, Open-Space Ratio (OSR), and average number of people per built area. Our findings from the Brazilian cities showed that intense verticalization does not automatically ensure open space and high density. Vertical morphologies showed the highest FSI values but not the highest housing densities, and had low to moderate OSR values, comparatively. Three morphologies found in Berlin (Contemporary, Half-Open and Edge) balanced housing density and OSR best (127–147 dwellings/ha, 0.5 to 0.8 OSR values, on average). Berlin’s Traditional type showed the best balance between FSI, GSI, average building height and OSR, with buildings ranging from 1 to 9 storeys. It also achieved the highest housing densities (188 dwellings/ha, on average), but at a cost of OSR. Those findings suggest that a compact city model with perimetral blocks (Half, Edge and Traditional types) could provide an optimum use of urban space, if open space provision is properly considered. We further discuss the advantages and implications of block-based urban planning and design (traditional in Berlin and other European cities) in contrast to plot-based (often observed in Latin American cities).

This paper is about changes in people's perceptions relating to security of land tenure in Recife, Brazil. This paper investigates why people living in contested settlements invest and consolidate their houses despite the apparent lack of land tenure security. The question is very simple, but the answer is highly complex. Although the topic has been widely researched, there is still insufficient understanding of what security means to individual households, and how security influences the consolidation and improvements of houses. Households invest in all kinds of processes and commodities to improve their plots, and their houses, and inevitably this changes their perceptions of security. Data were mainly gathered from in-depth interviews held with a total of 63 households living in five different informal settlements in Recife. The paper focuses on the informal claims made by households about their perceived rights over their property, since for the great majority of the households living in these settlements, property rights in the form of title deeds are not available. The key aspects highlighted in this papers are that (1) the lack of a better understanding about what tenure really means to low-income households can pose threats to the survival of low-income housing markets, and (2) contrary to orthodox knowledge, the paper contends that perceptions of tenure security increase as a result of housing consolidation.

This paper evaluates a technical assistance program for house self-builders in the region of the city of Campinas, Brazil. The assistance given is in the form of an individualized house design, distributed to selfbuilders, based on an automated computer aided design (CAD) generated design method. A case study is used to demonstrate the efficacy of the assistance program. The transfer process of a population from an environmental protection area to a new location and their need for rapid house construction is the specific case presented. Houses are evaluated as to satisfaction and environmental comfort conditions. As a result, lessons are learnt about assistance programs and their success in improving housing quality.