The right to the city and the housing in Brazilian cities

• Arlete Moysés Rodrigues ^[1]
  1. [1] Universidade Estadual de Campinas

     Universidade Estadual de Campinas

     Brasil

     
• Localización: Brazilian geography: in theory and in the streets / Rubén Camilo Lois González (ed. lit.), Marco Antonio Mitidiero Junior (ed. lit.), 2022, ISBN 9789811937033, págs. 233-253
• Idioma: inglés
• Texto completo no disponible (Saber más ...)
• Resumen

  • This article will analyse the general conditions of housing in Brazilian cities and housing policies, with an emphasis on the current situation. The right to adequate housing forms part of the right to the city, but the right to the city is broader; it consists of a different way of producing the city. The lack of adequate housing for workers is inherent to the capitalist production method. Housing includes land ownership—one of the foundations of the capitalist production method—and produces income for owners, given the collective production of the city. Buildings require a construction process and produce profits for the construction sectors. In Brazil, since its beginnings, land as a form of wealth has not been permitted for all. In 1850, the Land Law characterised land as a commodity in the capitalist production method. As such, access to this commodity can only be gained through purchasing and/or leasing—something which workers must guarantee with their own (always insufficient) salaries, as confirmed by the rate of the minimum wage. State housing policies for workers in the 1930s made employment conditional on the ability to rent and/or purchase. In 1966, the income brackets were established, and working would thereafter allow the acquisition of housing through the BNH-FGTS. From then on, the world of work began to subsidise urban development. This policy came to an end in 1986 with the dissolution of the BNH. There was financing, but no housing policy. The housing policy was reintroduced in 2009, with the Minha casa, minhavida [my house, my life] housing programme, set to expire in 2020. In any event, there is no guarantee of the right to housing as expressed in the Federal Constitution—something which evidences the socio-spatial inequality.