Transforming the modern Latin American city: Robert Moses and the International Basic Economic Corporation

Abstract

In 1950, Lineu Prestes, the then mayor of São Paulo, commissioned the International Basic Economy Corporation (IBEC), a commercial corporation headquartered in New York and owned by Nelson Rockefeller, to draw up a detailed report concerning the general planning of public works for the municipality of São Paulo. The urban planner Robert Moses was appointed Director of Studies and another 10 advisors were appointed to work in the ‘Program of Public Improvements’. The improvement plan for São Paulo was not an isolated initiative among those developed by IBEC, but it was very different from the other planning studies that had been conducted to date in that it was actually a consultative assignment. While performing technical studies, IBEC also identified opportunities for American companies to operate in Brazil; hence, the plan aroused great controversy. This paper seeks to establish how the Program emerged from the political and economic context of the post‐Second World War period in relation to Nelson Rockefeller’s activities in Latin America and Brazil, and it seeks to analyse, from the point of view of urban planning, the role played by the Program in the planning and development of the city of São Paulo.