#ThereWillBeNoNovaBH: escape lines in the production of the neoliberal city

Abstract

The last decades have meant an increase in socio-spatial segregation in Brazilian cities. The advances of neoliberal urbanism, which involve a deep relationship between State and the market, have converted our metropolis into victims of a corporate management model, thus favoring real estate and financial capital in detriment of a democratic and fair urban development. In Brazil, the Federal law called Statute of the City [Estatuto da Cidade] has incorporated new instruments of urban management directly associated to the logics of the urban neoliberal business community. It contradicted the expectations generated by social struggles which had been set in motion nearly 20 years before by the National Urban Reform Movement [Movimento Nacional da Reforma Urbana], which fought for new ways of thinking the city based on democratized management and the social role of property. The approval of this law allowed for city administrations, especially in larger cities, such as São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, and Belo Horizonte, to adopt the instrument of Operações Urbanas Consorciadas (OUC) as a tool to promote the city-company [cidade-empresa], making urban legislation more flexible and fomenting public-private partnerships. In Belo Horizonte, the OUC Nova BH has been developed as a large urban project in favor of private interests. However, a network composed of academic groups, social movements, and civil society has established an important form of resistance against this extensive project, which would encompass between 7 to 10% of the city’s territory. In this sense, the Indisciplinar EA-UFMG research group has sought to bring together actors from the urban struggles in the city, by utilizing a techno-political dispute process which involved the production of information and the mobilization of digital networks, as well as the constant presence of urban activists in the streets.