B. EXPERT INTERVIEWS PEDRO JACOBI Pedro Jacobi gave an insightful lecture about the growth of São Paulo as a city, natural resources and infrastructure, as well as how informality fits into this broader picture. Jacobi is a scholar in sociology, urban planning, sociology, and environmental science. Unlike many U.S. cities that have declined in population as a result of sprawl, São Paulo has experienced continued growth. The City’s population is about 11 million and 22 million if you include the metro area (IBGE 2010). Approximately 92% of the population has access to drinking water. The reason this high percentage of people have access to drinking water is because high infant mortality rates incentivized the government and landowners to address issues of access to water (IBGE 2010). The majority of drinking water is sourced from a different state, outside of the State of São Paulo. Rather than access to water, the greater challenge much of the population faces is the lack of sewage infrastructure. Although the lack of infrastructure may seem like a more prominent issue in informal areas, adequate maintenance of sewerage is a city-wide issue. Updated infrastructure in any part of São Paulo does not guarantee that sewage is properly treated. Topography, the political context, and lack of information are a few barriers to the City maintaining and upgrading infrastructure. Despite the larger issue of infrastructure that needs to be addressed by the City, landowners are responsible for connecting to the sewage, water, and electricity infrastructure 276
that currently exists, even in occupations. The housing and environmental conflict that presents itself, especially in an occupation like Ocupação Anchieta, is that environmentally protected areas require permits to build anything. The irony is that in order to improve the environmental quality of the immediate area, without evicting residents, infrastructure is necessary. One way to get infrastructure in informal areas is by formalizing them. However, this present social and environmental challenges regarding who will be able to afford formalization and who will be pushed out and forced to occupy (and pollute) a new area.
FERNANDO BOTTON Fernando Botton is a founding member of the URBZ São Paulo Group, “an experimental action and research collective working with associations, municipalities, and private clients around the world.” URBZ takes an interdisciplinary approach, employing architects, activists, and economists, for example. However, URBZ believes that residents are experts of their neighborhoods. Residents’ expertise is crucial for architecture, planning, urban development and policy-making. Through planning and design workshops, URBZ “promotes individual expression, grassroots involvement and ground up development.” Their commitment to information sharing and public participation allows URBZ to utilize local and global knowledge to produce innovative models in architecture, planning, and policy
