Urban and Regional Planning in Brazil

Abstract

Spatial planning in Brazil, be it at national, regional or urban scale, has the leadership of the federal government, although, as a federative republic, the federal government, the 27 states, and the roughly 5,400 local governments have to share responsibilities on this matter. To a large extent, this bias is due to historical and geopolitical strategies, in which the framework for urban and regional spatial planning has been based on the dominant way Brazil is inserted in the international division of labor. As such, dependent, nationalist, and global models of capitalism have successively defined the spatial planning strategies in Brazil since the early 1930s. Disconnected from development planning at all, these models have failed as strategies for fighting personal and regional income inequalities, which are a true stigma for Brazilian society. Currently, a new concept of regionalization, derived from national development planning strategies, is in train of being implemented, opening new perspectives for regional and urban planning in Brazil on a more sustainable basis.