Planejamento Urbano

This dissertation explores the contributions and limitations of gentrification theory to understand processes of upward urban redevelopment in São Paulo, Brazil. To this end, I develop a definition of gentrification that maintains its analytical consistency while also providing sufficient elasticity to illuminate diverging contexts. I apply this framework to two case studies in São Paulo that were locally recognized as experiencing gentrification. Ultimately, this research explores both the relevance of existing gentrification theory and the local meanings that it has assumed. Drawing on the classical and global definitions of gentrification, the analytical framework identifies three necessary dimensions common to all cases, even if mediating structures make their materialization context-specific. They are: (1) production of gentrifiable space; (2) upward socio-economic change with displacement; and (3) built environment upgrades. The two case studies in São Paulo expose the challenges of the straightforward importation of theory in each of these dimensions. First, the local urbanization pattern does not follow the central city disinvestment and suburbanization process of classical cases. Second, the presence of urban informality results in the displacement of both formal and informal residents. Third, in scenarios where apartments are valuable housing options, built environment upgrades promote verticalization and corporate developers become “pioneer” gentrifiers. Finally, by focusing on the state as a key mediating structure of gentrification, the case studies analyze the dynamics of one private-led and one state-led upward redevelopment process. In the first case, the state becomes an enabler by providing the support needed for gentrification to happen. By establishing a partnership with the private sector in the second case, the state becomes an entrepreneur, creating and benefiting from a speculative real estate market. Instead of reifying a homogeneous and invariable pro-market approach, though, they demonstrate the multiple and conflictive goals mediated and legitimized by the state and that can limit the impact of displacement. To be clear, these are indeed gentrification cases given the evidence of the necessary dimensions of the analytical framework. However, they posit the need to contextualize our understandings of gentrification since interactions between local and global patterns may alter the process over space and time.

The primary analytical focus of this dissertation is to assess municipal (district) human development by using spatial analysis and spatial econometric techniques with the intent of guiding decision-making processes. The Human Development Index (HDI) from the United Nations Development Program is the main focus of this study, which relies on geographic information systems (GIS) technology to incorporate the spatial dimension in the HDI, and to provide the data platform for analyses. Methods of Exploratory Spatial Data Analysis and Confirmatory Spatial Data Analysis are used to accomplish the research objectives. The results of this dissertation suggest that the geographic environment plays an important role in the understanding of the relationship between human development and public intervention. In the case of Brazil, public sector involvement in enlarging people's social choices must explicitly consider relative location if the goal is to create equitable access to opportunities through strategic investment in education, health, and skills of the people. This enhanced, spatial perspective will enable a greater number of the population to participate in the growth process as well as to share its benefits, and further expand people's capabilities. From the regional inequality perspective, that characterizes Brazil, Southeast municipalities have a comparative advantage because of their higher level of development; as a consequence, these municipalities have a stronger capacity to manage social issues. In contrast, Northeast municipalities, because of their lower level of development, do not have such a strong capacity. From the intra-urban perspective, similar, diverse spatial dynamics can be observed in the districts of Sao Paulo municipality. This dissertation draws three main conclusions concerning the relationship between human development and public intervention. First, the tendency to allow an uncontrolled decentralization process, common in many developing countries, may need to be replaced with some coordination mechanisms. Second, if there is a willingness to implement ‘pro-equality’ policies, social policies should be spatially focused, instead of being applied universally across all municipalities. Third, a few spatial strategies are proposed as alternatives to implement ‘pro-equality’ policies. These strategies are based on the existence of spatial diffusion processes that take place in the study areas.

Health effects from air pollution are a top ten cause of disability worldwide. Although research has linked air pollution to health, critical questions remain. This work examines key aspects of air pollution's impact on human health, including: (1) use of regional air quality modeling to estimate air pollution exposure in the United States (U.S.) for use in health studies; (2) relationships between air pollution and hospital admissions in the U.S., including estimates for populations and locations that cannot be studied using monitoring data alone; and (3) factors affecting vulnerability to health effects from air pollution exposure in São Paulo, Brazil. Most epidemiological studies use ambient monitors to estimate air pollution exposure, and while there is a growing body of research in industrializing nations, studies tend to be concentrated in North America and Europe. Use of ambient monitoring data is an efficient approach but restricts studies to locations and populations near monitors. The first project investigates the use of an emerging method, regional air quality modeling, to estimate air pollutant exposure in the U.S. The second project investigates the hypothesis that relationships between air pollution and health are not fully captured in studies relying exclusively on monitoring data, by using modeled and measured exposures to estimate health effects for populations without monitoring data. The third project investigates vulnerability to air pollution-related mortality in São Paulo, Brazil by sex, age, education, race, marital status, and neighborhood-level socioeconomic status (SES). I also examine whether the relationship between air pollution and mortality differs depending on the location at time of death, e.g., in-hospital versus out of hospital. Results from the first project demonstrate that exposure estimates derived from regional air quality modeling covered 50% more population compared to monitor-derived estimates. Counties with monitors were more urban, with a higher percentage of college graduates, and lower percentage of individuals living in poverty. Modeled estimates provided higher spatial and temporal resolutions, but model performance varied by pollutant, season, and location. Air quality models allow estimation of air pollution exposure for populations that differ demographically from those near monitors, but model output also have temporal and spatial biases that should be considered. The second project utilizes air quality modeling to estimate exposures and health impacts in areas and times with and without monitoring data, evaluate possible effect modification by community-specific characteristics (e.g., urbanicity, income), and investigate health effect estimates associated with short-term cumulative exposures. Higher cardiovascular effect estimates were observed in more urban counties. Compared to single day lags, higher respiratory health effect estimates were observed for multi-day lags measuring short-term cumulative exposures. Lag structures differed for respiratory and cardiovascular hospital admissions: the highest effect estimate for cardiovascular hospitalizations was observed at lag 01 (0.89% [PI: 0.51%, 1.28%] per 10µg/m3 PM2.5 [particulate matter with an aerodynamic diameter ≤2.5μ]), while the highest effect estimate for respiratory hospitalizations was observed at lag 06 (2.47% [0.29%, 4.69%] per 10µg/m3 PM2.5 ). Timing and pattern of exposure and health impacts may differ for respiratory and cardiovascular outcomes, and respiratory effect estimates based on a single day of exposure could underestimate the true effect. The third project contributes to knowledge of air pollution and health in São Paulo by investigating the role of individual- and community-level characteristics and the relationship between air pollution and mortality. Higher effect estimates for non-accidental mortality were observed for those with lower education: effects were 1.66% (0.23%, 3.08%), 1.51% (0.51%, 2.51%), and 2.82% (0.23%, 5.35%) higher for NO2, SO2, and CO exposure, respectively, in those with no education compared to those with postsecondary education. For cardiovascular mortality and PM10 exposure, effect estimates were 3.74% [0.044%, 7.30%] higher for no education compared to those with postsecondary education. Educational attainment is correlated with SES, but consistent trends of increasing health risks associated with pollutant exposure and residential SES were not observed. Positive, statistically significant associations between all air pollutants and mortality were observed for in-hospital deaths, whereas non-hospital deaths generally exhibited positive but not statistically significant associations. Scientific understanding of how air pollution affects health, including potentially vulnerable populations, requires new methods and analysis to answer questions that cannot be addressed with traditional approaches. Benefits from this research include the ability to estimate exposures for populations in times and locations without ambient monitors. This work provides some of the first estimates of air pollution-health risk using ambient modeling, estimates of risk for understudied rural populations, and potentially improved estimates for urban settings. The findings also provide evidence regarding which populations face the highest health burdens from air pollution.

Why do some bureaucratic bodies become robust after they are created, with adequate resources and authority to perform their tasks, while others remain underfunded and limited in scope? My dissertation explores this question using multisector regulatory agencies in Brazil. Before, during, and after the development of concessions and transfer of essential services to private control in Brazil, state governments created regulatory agencies to maintain an active state role overseeing of service delivery. Though regulatory agencies followed very similar formal outlines, their post-creation development varied widely. I explain this variation. My arguments are based in political principals’ electoral incentives. I begin with an instrumental explanation of agency creation. Governors created regulatory agencies to address a combination of consumer and concessionaire anxiety where they were unable to otherwise make long-term commitments to prevent abusive price increases or expropriation. I then argue that post-creation development was most pronounced where multisector bodies focused most heavily on work in electrical energy, sanitation, and piped natural gas distribution. Mayors and city councilmembers can claim credit for service improvements in these policy areas because these services are geographically bounded. By contrast, work in intercity highways and transportation provides few opportunities for improvement for which local officials can claim credit. Agencies focused on these second set of issues do not develop a positive reputation with mayors. Governors in turn care about mayors’ opinions, and receive credible information about bureaucratic work from them, because mayors’ support is key in future statewide elections. Agency leaders who employ their positive reputation to successfully lobby for more resources and authority produce robust agencies. I explore this argument in multiple areas. First, I explain the workings of the proposed causal mechanism through a comparison between the agency Agergs in moderately well-developed state of Rio Grande do Sul and the agency Arce in the less-developed state of Ceará. Agergs’s early focus on highway and transportation regulation meant that it grew far less robust by 2010 than did Arce, which focused on electricity and sanitation. I then test hypotheses across the case universe using descriptive statistics and causal process-tracing. I expand the argument slightly to examine sectoral agencies in São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, and hypothesize how different political institutions might affect subnational regulatory body development in Argentina and Mexico, the next-largest Latin American federations. My work contributes to our understanding of the functioning of the regulatory state in the global South. I raise new important questions about local state capacity in developing countries, and propose an explanation that can be transferred to multiple cases.

This study examines economic forces contributing toward the current shifts in manufacturing production away from Metropolitan São Paulo in São Paulo state. Locational pressures on manufacturing plants are explored in terms of the trade-off between productivity advantages due to lower wages in outlying areas. Spatial variations in productivity are examined using data for new manufacturing plants in Sao Paulo state. The analysis suggests that Metropolitan Sao Paulo has substantial agglomeration economies which enhance plant productivity. But, analysis of spatial variations in wages in Sao Paulo state shows that wages are substantially lower outside the metropolitan region, and result in substantially lower labor costs for plants in outlying regions. Comparison of the productivity advantages of central areas with the general face an even locational trade-off. The trend of industrial decentralization is consistent with this estimated trade-off. Because industrial decentralization is under way in Sao Paulo state without direct public intervention and, as much as this study could determine, without major distortions to market signals, no further policy intervention is recommend. Procedures for further encouraging the efficient decentralization of industry, nonetheless, are identified.

A presente dissertação tem como objetivo contextualizar o processo da produção espacial da Maré, mediante a reconstrução histórica e geográfica da dinâmica da produção do espaço favela no Município do Rio de Janeiro. Para tanto, a pesquisa foi norteada pela concepção teórico-metodológica da categoria/conceito de análise espaço geográfico, que permitiu o entendimento das espacializações desenvolvidas pelos moradores da Maré através das diferentes escalas de observação (Município, Região Administrativa/Bairro, Favela). O trabalhou primou por uma reflexão que evidencia o movimento dialético que é estabelecido entre a sociedade e a sua espacialidade. De modo que a exteriorização do espaço geográfico seja percebida através das diferentes formas espaciais, onde tais formas assumem uma existência, a partir dos valores e sentidos (função) que esta sociedade lhe atribuiu. Neste estudo, as favelas da Maré se apresentam como um exemplo de grande importância para ilustrar as diferentes práticas sociais e espaciais construídas pelos distintos atores que produziram este espaço. Tal afirmativa foi contextualizada por meio de uma retrospectiva de sua formação e consolidação e  também, mediante aos dados relacionados às condições de vida e de habitação da população residente na Maré no ano de 2000. Para isso, foram utilizados dados provenientes do Censo Demográfico IBGE 2000, assim como informações dos Censos Maré 2000 e do “Maré 2000: As Empresas da Maré” e dos Institutos Pereira Passos (IPP) e de Pesquisa Econômica Aplicada (IPEA). As informações selecionadas para esse conjunto de indicadores levaram em conta não só o volume populacional e o crescimento, mas também, a estrutura etária, a educação, a migração, a habitação e o rendimento.

Com base em diversas fontes da literatura demográfica sobre a reprodução humana, procurou-se reunir experiências e conceitos gerais sobre a transição de altos a baixos níveis de fecundidade. Notadamente, tal conjuntura revela que o fenômeno da transição da fecundidade pode variar ou ocorrer em múltiplos contextos sociais, econômicos e culturais inseridos nas diferentes populações estudadas. O Brasil apresentou, nas últimas décadas, uma das transições de fecundidade mais rápidas ocorridas no século vinte quando comparado a outros países em desenvolvimento. Em menos de quarenta anos, a taxa de fecundidade total, que girava em torno de seis filhos, caiu a níveis próximos de reposição (2,4 filhos por mulher em 2000). Dentre os estados brasileiros, o Rio de Janeiro, tradicionalmente, vem apresentando os mais baixos níveis de fecundidade do país desde o início do século passado, principalmente, a sua capital. A presente dissertação traça um panorama geral dos diferenciais da fecundidade do Município do Rio de Janeiro, levando-se em conta a distribuição de mulheres que estão com o ciclo reprodutivo completo ou "quase completo", segundo o número de filhos tidos nascidos vivos. O estudo leva em consideração os diferentes perfis socioeconômicos das mulheres de 35 a 49 anos de idade por raça/cor, anos de estudo, estado civil, condição de atividade, classes de rendimento nominal mensal familiar e religião. Por conseguinte, o objetivo deste estudo comparativo é medir o efeito dessas variáveis sobre a fecundidade dos segmentos populacionais femininos residentes em favelas e fora delas, utilizando-se os dados dos Censos Demográficos de 1991 e 2000

Os eventos conflituosos que reivindicaram segurança pública na cidade do Rio de Janeiro entre os anos de 1993 e 2003 se constituíram enquanto objeto de análise do presente trabalho. A hipótese que orientou a análise foi se haveria um padrão na conflitualidade da violência na cidade pelo modo como a sociedade reage ao crime violento. Os dados empíricos utilizados foram os registros de eventos conflituosos organizados no Mapa dos Conflitos Urbanos na cidade do Rio de Janeiro, que utilizou como fontes os três jornais diários de maior circulação na cidade e os arquivos do Ministério Público do Estado do Rio de Janeiro. As recorrências observadas nas opções de forma de luta, nas motivações desencadeantes das manifestações públicas coletivas, na caracterização dos agentes mobilizados ou reclamados e na espacialização das ocorrências registradas apontaram para um duplo padrão de reações sociais. Na "favela" ou no "asfalto" os conflitos apresentaram semelhanças e recorrências, se ocorridos em um mesmo tipo de espaço, mas diferenças profundas, se contrastados os espaços de origem das motivações. As formulações de um movimento social acerca dos conflitos por segurança nas "favelas" complementaram as descrições de tais conflitos, que embora mais numerosas, apareceram com menos detalhes nos registros. Tenta-se demonstrar, através das lutas coletivas, como um processo de criminalização dos moradores de favelas foi desenvolvido enquanto mecanismo de controle social.

O desenvolvimento capitalista leva à urbanização capitalista, que não somente àquele se adapta como também o impulsiona. Nas cidades, as condições de vida dos trabalhadores dependem do processo de urbanização, já que o salário direto não garante as necessidades básicas para a reprodução da força de trabalho. No Rio de Janeiro, o processo de urbanização é marcado pela desigualdade. Favelas, ocupações e diversos tipos de conflitos urbanos existem em todas as áreas da cidade. Mas o movimento sindical participa destas lutas? Como? Através dos jornais de seis entidades sindicais cariocas, publicados no período 1995-2002, examinou-se quais temas urbanos são priorizados pelos sindicatos e porque; que relação estes mantém com os movimentos sociais urbanos; e o que falam sobre as políticas governamentais para habitação, transportes, equipamentos e serviços urbanos, uso e ocupação do solo. Em suma, como o movimento sindical participa das disputas e conflitos urbanos na cidade do Rio de Janeiro.

Esta dissertação examina a 'máquina' perversa que 'produz' pobres políticos. Para tal, constitui objeto empírico da dissertação a política de urbanização de favela da Administração Municipal da Cidade do Rio de Janeiro, no período 1986-1992. A hipótese norteadora e questionada do estudo realizado afirmava que, sob um discurso de aparência progressista (incentivar a organização comunitária, eleger a comunidade organizada como interlocutora), escondiam-se práticas conservadoras, conduzidas pela cooptação de lideranças e pela subordinação política da população favelada.