Corporate urban management and the right to the city: recent tensions in Brazilian cities

In the context of the mega events in Brazil – the 2014 World Cup and the 2016 Olympic Games –, the urban projects that were implemented with huge public investment indicate the strengthening of a corporate cities... [ view full abstract ]

In the context of the mega events in Brazil – the 2014 World Cup and the 2016 Olympic Games –, the urban projects that were implemented with huge public investment indicate the strengthening of a corporate cities production pattern, within a growing hegemony of profitability, financialization and private management of collective goods and services. It is observed with the corporate business insertion in the production and management of the host cities, the leading of major companies working in the entire implementation process, including the definition of the urban design projects, construction holding and its future management, taking over the decisions about public services and equipment in long terms, for the next three decades. Without the necessary public discussion about the city’s collective interests, this process permeates the urban space with a selectivity and exclusivity of use and market consumption, associated with the current financial globalization cycle, framing the so called neoliberal urbanism. This urban management privatization has brought remarkable changes in recent public-private accessibility of urban space and a strong gentrification process that intensifies the expelling of low-income population from central areas to distant urban peripheries. As a growing process, it has generated strong tensions between the social achievements towards the right to the city as a collective good and the contemporary expansion of social segregation and exclusion. The paper to be presented analyzes case studies in Brazilian cities after the mega events.