Parque Augusta (São Paulo/Brazil): From the Struggles of a Social Movement to Its Appropriation in the Real Estate Market and the Right to Nature in the City

Abstract

Through a dialectical approach, building a thesis, an antithesis and a synthesis, our goal in this article is to discuss the implementation of the Parque Augusta, in the center of São Paulo, Brazil. For years, an organized social movement struggled with the municipality and real estate developers for the protection of the park and its green area. The demanded and desired park, collectively designed and managed, physically structured on the principles of the nature-based solutions (NBS), should represent a victory. However, in a capitalist urban space, the future park has already been appropriated in the real estate market to enhance development values and to increase the density of its environs with the construction of new skyscrapers. In a city tagging its climate actions using NBS concepts, the project in implementation by the municipality has fewer NBS elements than the co-designed with citizens participation. Here we present the narratives of the park creation and some indicators about its appropriation, based on land use and real estate market prices. The theoretical critical perspective was fundamental to reveal the contradictions within the park construction, called attention to the consideration of the surrounding area in greening projects and promoted a synthesis towards the universalization of the right to nature in the city.