SOCIOESPATIAL SEGREGATION AND URBAN POLITICS IN MEDIUM-SIZED CITIES IN CONTEMPORARY BRAZIL (2001-2011)

The “City Statute” (Federal Law 10.257/2001) regulated the chapter about urban politics of Brazil’s 1988 Constitution and widened the powers of the cities to legislate about their territories by making available new tools for urban regulation and order. The cities of Piracicaba, Bauru and Rio Claro, medium-sized cities of the state of São Paulo, passed through processes of revising their Directive Plans in the first decade of the 21^st century to adequate their plans to the principles of the Statute. The comparative analysis of these processes, of the implementing of Special Zones of Social Interest (Zonas Especiais de Interesse Social – ZEIS), and of the urban politics evidences the limitations of the Directive Plans. These limitations occur by these plans being the opposite of the real and land markets’ interests, which cause obstacles in the confronting of urban and environmental passives, affecting especially the poorer spheres of the population.

Urban dynamics; Special Zones of Social Interest; City Statute; Directive Plans