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.
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