03.1 URBAN LAND USE POLICY
Urbanization in Brazil rose dramatically from 30% in 1940 to 84% in 2010, largely as a result of industrialization and international pressures relating to trade and currency devaluation.1 This influx of urban dwellers continues to face a shortage of affordable housing, with the private for-profit market unable to provide adequate housing where profit margins for affordable housing production are too thin. These conditions ultimately converge to propagate unequal urbanization and a lower quality of life in urban areas for low-income populations: poor sanitation, the proliferation of favelas, and dramatic environmental issues. Partly due to unequal access to land and exacerbated by speculative land markets, clientelist political systems, and elitist urban planning, Brazilian cities suffer from deep socio-spatial segregation. These inequalities are illustrated in the stark difference in average age of death between São Paulo’s peripheral and central districts: for example, the average age of death in the peripheral district of Cidades Tiradentes is 57.3 years, while the average in the central district of Moema is more than 20 years higher at 80.6 years.2 A major challenge for public housing programs, including selfmanaged housing, is the lack of affordable, centrally-located land. Without government intervention and laws dedicated to ensuring the accessibility of land, social housing is forced into the periphery, perpetuating urban segregation and spatial inequality. This section describes the trajectory of urban policies and legislation that shaped the conditions of land use in Brazil, highlighting important actors and movements. 2 8 • B A C K G R O U N D M AT E R I A L
BACKGROUND Brazil has recognized the right to property since the country’s independence from Portugal and the declaration of the Political Constitution of the Brazilian Empire in 1824. It was reaffirmed during the establishment of the Brazilian Republic in 1889 and adopted through each of the country’s subsequent constitutions, continuing through the military dictatorship from 1964 to 1985.3 Tied to this right to individual property is the government’s right to expropriate property with just compensation to the property owner. For most of the country’s existence, this right can only be exercised for public purposes. Because the Federal Parliament omitted it from the 1916 Civil Code, the social function of property remained a mere legal principle until the Brazilian Constitution of 1934 established it as a constitutional principle. In its bill of individual rights, the Constitution established that “the right of property is protected, provided it is not exerted against any social or collective interests, in the forms determined by the law.” According to Brazilian legal doctrine, the idea of “any social or collective interests” encompasses the concept of a social function of property; it thus acquires constitutional status and may be put into effect according to “the forms determined by the law.” In other words, the social function becomes an external limitation that the government must impose on the exercise of property rights.4 It wasn’t until the 1967 Constitution that the social function of land was established. The government’s ability to ensure that land uses fulfilled a wider societal purpose would later
