CROSSROADS IN CULTURAL STUDIES
Fourth International Conference
June 29 - July 2, 2002, Tampere, Finland

Creating a Social and Environmentaly Sustainable City in Brazil: Citizenship, Culture and Urban Policy

Organiser: Maria Teixeira

C.Teixeira, Maria Gracinda (IVIG/COPPE/UFRJ - Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil) and Bessa, Eliane, M.A. (FAU/UFRJ - Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil) CREATING THE CULTURE OF ENVIRONMENT. IS THERE ANY CHANCE FOR SOCIAL TRANSFORMATION FROM A GLOBAL IDEA DEVELOPED IN LOCAL SPHERE?
This work purports to show that the absorption of the means for utilization of an environmental management system in a certain fishing community in Brazil supposedly did not produce results in terms of transformation of this population´s life-style with relation to the environment in which it lives. The environmental control methods adopted, for the purpose of transforming a manual economic activity into an activity considered to be industrial, were assimilated well through the use of a project and creation of the means needed for its implementation. However, the implementation of the environmental measures limited to the economic activity highlighted the contrasts of a reality whose level of deterioration of the environment in which these fishermen live is marked by the precariousness of the dwellings and the lack of sanitation, as opposed to an economic environment in which the productive activity is based on principles and norms considered environmentally sustainable.

Pinheiro Machado, Denise (PROURB/UFRJ - Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil) HERITAGE AND CULTURE: RESCUING METROPOLIS' CENTRALITY
The metropolitan phenomenon challenges the centrality and atractiveness of the metropolis' historical and business centers. Tensions are established among several created centralities, bringing about spatial, functional, social and economic differences. In Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, polarities are noticed competing with the traditional metropolitan center. Its loss of centrality and atractiveness create perverse effects within the cultural, spatial, economic and social scope of the metropolis, reaching urban identity and memory. It constitutes meaningful problems through obsolecense and lack of use of the built environment. Public authorities have been undertaking revitalization politics of Rio's central area, aiming at a valuing of the urban-architectural heritage, as well as the introduction of cultural equipment and activities. This paper will look at the main strategies and intervention themes, their integration and contribution to the centrality permanence of the traditional, historical and business center of the metropolis.

Coutinho M. Da Silva, Rachel (PROURB/UFRJ - Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil) URBAN HISTORICAL SITES VERSUS LAND DEVELOPMENT: CREATING POLICIES THAT PRESERVE OUR CULTURE HERITAGE
An important issue facing public planning officials is how to put forward policies that preserve historical sites in high-density urban areas. Buildings in those areas are subjected to enormous pressure from real estate developers, which want to maximize land use constructing up to the maximum permitted by legislation. In this paper I intend to analyze some policies aimed toward preserving historic sites within large cities. In order to illustrate the analysis I will present a recent debate that took place in a traditional high-income neighborhood in the city of Rio de Janeiro. The discussion was about a legislation aimed at preserving historic buildings was used to prevent the construction of high rise buildings, and thus control real estate development and speculation. In doing that I will also analyze the so-called Estatuto da Cidade, a Brazilian legislation recently approved, which contains interesting instruments to be used at preserving cultural heritage.

Cavallazzi Lunardelli, Rosângela (PROURB/UFRJ - Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil) JURIDICAL CULTURE AND RIGHT TO THE CITY, POSSIBILITIES AND OBSTACLES IN THE SOCIAL EFFECTIVENESS OF THE URBANISTIC RULE
The instituted juridical culture, in the contemporaneous cities, denotes serious immoderation in connecting the complex and fragmentary urban requirements. The modern city seduced by the regulating and disintegrating form of social relations and public spaces, explicit permanent tensions between the public and the private. The access and guarantee to qualified urban landscape, while a right of everyone, presuposes a balanced relation between nature and built. The urbanistic rule´s flexible interpretation may amplify the right instituted´s reach, recognizing consacrated rights in the social practices.
Defence and access to the qualified landscape, as collective, social patrimony, that preserves the social function of the private urban property, but essentially, while principle of the rule´s interpretation, amplifies the legal system´s possibilities of reaching the social and juridical effectiveness.