Reform, redevelopment and rent: Dilemmas of the social function of property in the private domain of the Brazilian metropolis

Abstract

This paper discusses the disappointing outreach of Brazilian urban reform by analyzing the underlying tensions and contradictions of its key principle, that is, the social, function of property (SFP), from a perspective of contemporary theoretical debates on the double nature of rent (i.e., related to monopoly positions and emerging from market, circulation). The SFP principle is grounded in anti-rentier, agrarian reform thinking, which stressed that individual monopoly landowners should not be allowed to retain their property for speculative purposes and use it productively to increase food supplies. In contemporary dense cities, however, using property “productively” implies redevelopment, that is, transformation of existing structures of the built environment, into alternative ones. This has two implications, one related to the essence of the SFP, (its being), the other regarding what it means having a SFP in an urban setting. In relation to the former, despite its anti-rentier stance, in cities the SFP triggers a redevelopment-rent nexus due to the circulation of rents in non-competitive markets. Regarding the latter implication, having a SFP in cities requires complex, open-ended and utilitarian negotiations between state and non-state actors aimed at the appropriation of rents to articulate the conflicting interests of individual property owners with the collective good. The theoretical argument of the paper is illustrated with a short, heuristic case on redevelopment in the city of São Paulo, while its conclusion provides elements for a research agenda on the limits of market-based, reformist versus right- based planning beyond this specific context.