BRAZILIAN OVERVIEW ON
KEY ISSUES
Brazil UK Startup Meeting Oxford Brookes – May 18
2010
Structure
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Some general features of the Brazilian
urban and regional development
trajectory
Territorial and productive restructuring
and the emergence of new state spaces
– some observations on Brazil
Issues for discussion – the network
Brazilian cities
Population
range
More than
350.000
No. of
Municipalities
Population
GDP
% of
Municipalities
% of
population
% GDP
61
64.144.341
1.154.239.615,82
1,10%
34,86%
48,71%
50.000 –
350.000
505
56.339.642
722.094.340,97
9,08%
30,62%
30,47%
20.000 –
50.000
994
29.986.945
247.262.066,34
17,87%
16,30%
10,43%
Less than
20.000
4.003
33.513.562
246.178.486,09
71,96%
18,22%
10,39%
Total
5.563
183.984.490
2.369.774.509,21
100,00%
100,00%
100,00%
Concentration,
polarization and uneven
development
The Brazilian UrbanNetwork – (IBGE)
Human Development
% of people older than 15, with
less than 4 years of school (Base – 2000)
Participation of cities in the GDP (2006)
25% of the national GDP is located
in 5 cities
50% of the national GDP is located
In 50 municípios
Participação dos Municípios no PIB Brasileiro
75% of the GDP in 300 cities
85% of the GDP in 751 cities
Participação dos Municípios no PIB Brasileiro
95% of the GDP in 2202 cities
99% of the GDP in 4205 cities
Participation (%) of the main city networks in the GDP, agrobussiness, industry and services – 2002/2006
Economic development has
spread over the last
decades, but there are limits
to macro-spatial
deconcentration outside the
south-eastern/southern states
Red dots:
Intense
Dynamism
(% growth
of city
GDP)
Red dots: very
low income
cities with very
high dynamism
NOME_UF
Maranhão
Maranhão
Maranhão
Maranhão
Maranhão
Maranhão
Maranhão
Maranhão
Piauí
Piauí
Piauí
Piauí
Piauí
Piauí
Piauí
Sergipe
Bahia
Bahia
Minas Gerais
Mato Grosso
MUNIC
Anapurus
Bom Jardim
Centro Novo do Maranhão
Igarapé do Meio
Luís Domingues
Pirapemas
Porto Franco
Serrano do Maranhão
Assunção do Piauí
Baixa Grande do Ribeiro
Currais
Manoel Emídio
Santa Filomena
Santo Antônio de Lisboa
Sebastião Leal
Capela
Barrocas
Sátiro Dias
Grão Mogol
Curvelândia
Red dots - Very
high income
cities with a
very high level
of dynamism
dinâmicos
NOME_UF
Rio Grande do Nort
Minas Gerais
Minas Gerais
Minas Gerais
Minas Gerais
Minas Gerais
Espírito Santo
Rio de Janeiro
Rio de Janeiro
Rio de Janeiro
São Paulo
São Paulo
São Paulo
São Paulo
São Paulo
São Paulo
Santa Catarina
MUNIC
Guamaré
Araporã
Nova Ponte
Ouro Branco
São João Batista do Glória
São José da Barra
Anchieta
Armação dos Búzios
Campos dos Goytacazes
Quissamã
Alumínio
Ariranha
Estrela d'Oeste
Jaguariúna
Motuca
São Caetano do Sul
Treze Tílias
Red dots:
High income
cities with
dynamism
Very low
Income
Cities
With
dynamism
These are 454
cities
concentrated in
the NE states
and the
Amazonia
Other features of the urban
development trajectory
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Growth and increasing density of the periphery of the
metropolitan areas, state capitals and larger urban poles in
the country, characterized by a pattern of unequal acess to
land and urban services, and environmental degradation
Deterioration and derelict areas in the central areas of larger
cities and metropolitan areas
The opening up of new urban-peri-urban rural frontiers in the
central–eastern and Amazone regions (agrobusiness etc.)
triggers environmental and land based conflicts, lack of
urbanity and conflicts with indigenous population
Other features of the urban
development trajectory (ctd)
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Urban economic growth and population inflow of cities located
in resource rich areas (minerals, agro-business, petrol),
frequently generating environmemntal degradation, intense
land based conflicts and relocation of indigenous communities
Urban economic growth of city regions that polarize, both
along the coastal zones as well in the interior regions of the
country (satelite – platforms?) – cities located along the
Amazon river, along the highway Brasília-Cuiabá-Porto
Velho-Rio Branco, Belém-Brasília and, more recently, the
highway, Cuiabá-Santarém.
Territorial and productive
restructuring and the emergence
of new state spaces – some
observations on the Brazilian
scenario
From Spatial keynesianism...
Spatial Keynesianism
STATE SPATIAL PROJECTS
STATE SPATIAL STRATEGIES
SCALAR DIMENSION
State administrative and regulatory
capacities are centralized around the
national scale: regions and localities are
subordinated to the macroeconomic and
macro-redistributive imperatives of the
(national) center
The national scale is promoted as the
most essential level of politicaleconomic life: the national economy
thus becomes "the essential
geographical unit of economic
organization, accumulation, and
regulation over which the state is the
sovereign actor"
TERRITORIAL DIMENSION
Redistributive policies are mobilized in
Relatively uniform structures of
order to equalize the distribution of
territorial administration are established
industry and infrastructure investment
throughout the national space-economy:
across the national space-economy: "in
"consistent standards of social welfare
most countries, postwar Keynesian
and social infrastructure provision (are
interventionism was a key factor behind
established) across regions and
the steady process of regional
localities, thereby incorporating them
convergence in per capita incomes that
into an increasingly collective or public
characterized most advanced capitalist
space-economy"
nations until the late 1970s"
Source: Brenner, 2004: 132, Figure 4.2
To rescaled, competitive state
spatial regimes....?
Urban locational Policies in Western-Europe
SCALAR DIMENSION
TERRITORIAL DIMENSION
STATE SPATIAL PROJECTS
STATE SPATIAL STRATEGIES
Tendential decentralization of state
administrative arrangements towards
subnational tiers of national authority.
Regional and local state institutions
aquire new responsabilities in the
development, financing and
implementation of economic
development p
Increasing localization of socioeconomic
assets as national, regional and local
state institutions attempt to enhance
territorial competitiveness within
strategic urbanized spaces. Cities and cityregions are viewed as key geographical
engines of economic
Increasing customization of state spatial
arrangements according to place and
jurisdiction-specific conditions and
priorities. This generates an increased
differentiation of local and regional
institutional forms and an enhanced
divergence of local and r
Increasing differentiation of national
political-economic spaces as state
institutions attempt to channel major
socioeconomic assets and advanced
infrastructure investments into the most
globally competitive urban and regional
spaces. This generates an in
Source: Brenner, 2004: 214, Figure 5.8
Brazil in the 1990s
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Opening up of the Brazilian macroeconomic
framework, without compensating industrial,
technological and regional development policies
Colapse of the national developmental regime
Neo-localist regimes, tax wars, regulatory
downgrading, federal government laissez-faire
Competitive federal relations (states, cities)
More recently, however.....
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
Advances in federal housing and urban
development policies – creation of the ministry,
statute of the city, institutionalization of
participatory structures (conselho das cidades),
substantial increases in financial resources for the
housing and urban development sector (PAC, Minha
casa minha vida);
Metropolitan agenda is being taken up again (new
law on public consortia etc.)
Nevertheless, progress is said to be
slow....
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Application of the statute of the city is slow – vested
interests in real estate markets
Federal programs and financial resources often
“bypass” the institutional and participatory
structures that have been created;
There is no national program for metropolitan
governance
Issues for the network and the
research
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Urban environmental justice – combining the urban/housing
and the green agenda in an inclusive and sustainable manner
– last few years – after convergence there are increasing
conflicts (e.g environmental versus the housing movements);
Metropolitan governance and nation building in a post –
keynesian scenario? – going beyond socio-institutional
engineering – multi-scalar policies;
Regional development in an increasingly fragmented national
space economy – archipelago economies in resource rich
frontier regions – urban-peri-urban rural linkages without a
national framework – from “macro-regional” to new regionalist
regional policies?
Last but not least.... Linking the urban
policy agenda with climate change
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Limits, potentials, threats and risks – what is the role
of cities in the debate (the scalar issue);
How to set goals and targets
Instruments – economic and regulatory instruments –
leakages associated with city activism;
Welfare economic considerations – where to tax
(production chains and resource intensive
regions)/how to evaluate policy instruments?
Political economy framework – who gains/who
loses?