Trapped by the land? Change and continuity in the provision of social housing in Brazil

Abstract

Despite economic growth, institutional strengthening, improved regulatory frameworks for urban land markets and availability of subsidized financial resources for social housing, Brazilian urban development policy has continued to face challenges in providing access to housing for low-income groups in general, and families earning up to three minimum salaries in particular. In this article, we argue that state spatial policies have been severely weakened by the lack of leverage over urban land markets. In that respect, the renewed rolled-out developmental state that has followed the neoliberalization of spaces in the 1990s, as reflected in the Statute of the City, the creation of the Ministry for Cities and the launch of federal housing finance programmes represent advances, but have not been able to trigger structural change in the production of urban space.