The Open City – A Matter of Access?

Anthony Fuchs CCUC, Center for Commercial and Urban

Consultancy
e: [email protected]
Igor Guatelli Mackenzie University
e: [email protected]
Jaap Klaarenbeek CCUC, Center for Commercial and Urban
Consultancy
e: [email protected]
Jasper Moelker Active IDs
e: [email protected] Abstract

Keywords:
Citizenship, public space, São Paulo, marginality, poverty,
inequality,

Abstract
In this paper the authors attempt to relate experiences and results
collected during an on-site workshop – The City Space Investigations 2009
held in São Paulo – to a larger discourse on marginality and citizenship.
The ‘City of Walls’ increasingly transforms into a patchwork of segregated
enclaves defined by ‘lifestyles’ with spatially hardened borders, confining
marginals to an existence outside mainstream society. By combining the
theoretical discourse on marginality-poverty and citizenship in their two
dimensions, social (including political, economic) and spatial the authors
identify public space as one root of the problem but also as important tool
for change. Public Space continues to represent crystallization points that
may accommodate forms closer to the ideal of the public sphere – an
unconditional welcome, which bear the potential to strengthen new forms
of citizenship. A systematic strategy centring on public space as a network
may reverse the erosive tendencies of post-modern society. A historic
overview of the transformation of public space and the city of São Paulo
forms the bases to explore the workshop concepts of some participants
and the question of the role of the architect in the process of change.

Introduction:
This paper emerged out of the concluding discussion within the City Space
Investigations Workshop held in April 2009 in the city of São Paulo where
underlying concerns present during the on-site period concretized: What

The Open City – A Matter of Access? 1

possibilities do we as architects and planners have to change such
situations?
Despite all fears public space is not dead and even the hardliners crafting
apocalyptic consequences of new technologies on society had to
acknowledge that their impact did not erode the meaning of cities as
socially constructed human life worlds. However interrelated forces have
altered the backbone of cities and led to a fragmentation of public space
which ceases to represent focal points of the (universal) public sphere.
The commercialization of public spaces, the creation of off-worlds and
fortifications are increasingly replacing traditional forms by reducing
accessibility. This development is not intrinsic negative, but in practice
highly imbalanced and on the costs of the least powerful, the urban poor.
This conference contribution is an attempt to cast a larger light on the
problem of urban poverty by linking its structural causes and implied
consequences to the dimension of citizenship. The claim is not to
denounce current practices and plea for turning back to a Greek ideal, but
to realize access to public space as fundamental to citizenship. What is
needed is a consciousness of public space as a strategic tool of integration
and using its relative abundance to create crystallization points of diverse
- but not universal publics, latter being never a historic reality despite
numerous idealizations.
The structure of this paper unfolds as followed. We depart from the
discourse on citizenship to draw from its historic meaning to the modern
implications of rights and obligations in heterogeneous societies. The
importance of space is emphasized by the inherent process of group
formation requiring the exclusion of otherness. The otherness is discussed
in the second chapter by focusing on the concept of the marginals. Its two
dimensional framework of social and spatial marginality casts light to the
root of poverty and urban inequality. As our “spatial behaviour, which is
defined by and defines the spaces around us, is an integral part of our
social existence” (Madanipour 2003b, p.139) public space becomes a
pivotal tool to analyze current societal changes but also consequently the
backbone of any sustainable strategy. While the third chapter will outline
this importance of public space the fourth chapter exemplifies past
changes in meaning and structure in the city of São Paulo: from diverse
public spaces to spaces of diverse publics. The last chapter uses some
workshop investigations to substantiate our theoretical model with more
practical proposals to address the initial question of the role of the
architect.

Citizenship
Citizenship describes a belonging to a larger group beyond the individual
or kinship, which does not necessarily imply the city (although for Max
Weber it is its essence), but which through time mostly have been the
instance of reference. Isin (2008) connecting to the work of Fustel de
Coulanges distinguishes between civitas and urbs which stand in the line
of Henri Lefebvre seeing cities as intersection of society and space. As
citizenship will be essential for our discussion on marginality we will
elaborate these concepts at large. First we quickly outline the dimensions
of citizenship according to Marshall to then draft the historic development
of citizenship. The discourse on the modern nation state will then provide
the basis for the following chapter.

The Open City – A Matter of Access? 2

All discussions on citizenship start with the work of T.H. Marshal (1950).
Despite certain flaws, his division into political, social, and civil dimensions
is still very practical. Marshall sees citizenship as a substance of
community membership to be derived by a sense of loyalty to a common
civilization. Marshall’s work concentrates mostly on the so called passive
citizenship as it emphasis the act of entitlement. These were formally
exclusive but have been universalized in the course of the last three
centuries. In modern times this point of identification is the nation state,
the relation regularized into rights (see Rauböck 2000, p.93).
The western notion of citizenship is based on two although interconnected,
nevertheless strongly differing concepts, one of the Latin civitas
influenced from Greek-Etruscan traditions, the other is the Medieval
concept of burgess. Rome discovered citizen rights as political tool of
integration and control: Rome rewarded faithful new tribes and bound
them at the same time to the Empire in a complex system of territorial
layered citizenship (Isin 1997, p.123). Looking at society citizenship rights
were confined to a few. Despite its idealization in modern times, the res
publica was based on a system of exclusion of numerically important
population groups. Exclusion was even far more systematic in the Greek
society as only land owners pertained to it (Isin 2002, p.57). The voiceless
(selon Aristotle) were not granted access to the agora (women, slaves,
artists). Even at the height of Greek civilization it is estimated only one out
of seven had citizen rights (See Mumford 1966). Public life was not only
spatially embodied in the Greek agora, but also mostly contained within it.
Rome’s forum in exchange, although sharing many similarities with the
Greek pendant, diversified its public spaces with the rise to the great
empire. Several self contained extensions were built for example in Rome,
often specific for some functions – the basilica was a specialized
architectural type for commercial activities (See Carmona et.al. 2008,
23ff). What makes the Latin civitas relatively unique is its openness to
otherness, as it focused on an ideological substance – a Roman was
someone you committed to the Roman ideal. This common identity
transgressing ethnic difference is closer to the idea of the modern nation
state as many theorists would acknowledge. In Medieval times public
space remained framed by the trinity of economic, political and religious
centers but importance shifted first to religion. The church and its main
square were the primary focus of everyday life and only after a town
reached a certain threshold a separate market square was erected, not
very different to the dynamics in Antiquity. City dwellers and citizens were
according to Mumford (1966) synonymous terms and furthermore freedom
and citizenship became interchangeable (Marshall 2006, p.32, see one-
year-and-a-day-rule). Cities were independent legal bodies – whether by
decree or de facto. Within the city’s boundary citizenship status were
determined by their political status which depended on their religious,
ethnics and class membership (See Kymlicka & Norman 1994, p.370).
Compared to Antiquity situations of the citizens have improved
remarkably in terms of partaking and rights, as the public consisted of
almost all town dwellers. But still a few were excluded or granted only
conditional welcome like travelers, all disreputable professions (grave
digger, guards, etc.), and the Jewish community. Politics continued to be
linked to wealth and property and thus the domain of a fraction of society.
In modern times the city as source and reference of citizenship gave way
to the political constructs of the 19th century, the nation state which

The Open City – A Matter of Access? 3

“sought to establish citizenship as that identity which subordinates and
coordinates all other identities - of religion, estate, family, gender,
ethnicity, region, and the like – to its framework of a uniform body of law”
(Holsten & Appadurai 1999, 1). Consequently citizenship “became a
bundle of political, civil, and social entitlements and duties within the
framework of state law.” (Isin 1997, 127) The justification of the nation
state is substantiated in two differing manners. In one way like in the
United States citizenship is based on an ius soli concept (children born on
American soil receive automatically the American citizenship) and
secondly the jus sanguinis as seen in Germany. While former defines
nation as territory that defines the community, Germany is seen as
aggregation of commonness by descent. Theoretically the jus soli is far
more apt to accommodate difference in practice disparities in tolerance,
hospitality and opportunity structure are less accentuated. We have seen
so far that citizenship through history has been confined to a smaller or
bigger share of society. Also in neoliberal practice full citizenship is limited
to some citizens corresponding to an ideal, which differs greatly among
countries and regimes but may include elements of race (white), gender
(male), income (formal employment), sexual orientation (straight), and
even political status (party member). “Those who do not fit the
characteristics of ‘individuals’ are produced as ‘others’ as inadequate or
unsatisfactory ‘citizens.” (Nash 1999, p.157) The question how to
integrate otherness is a very virulent one often resulting in heated
discussions. The increased mobility on several levels over the last decades
has resulted in greater ethnic, cultural, and religious diversity and
seriously eroded any domination claim of a leading class. 1 In perspective
of 20-50 percent foreign born population in some urban concentrations of
the world, the term of minority has to be revised. Looking into the future,
the nation will have to fundamentally redefine the status of their citizens –
Herwig Birg (2002) speaks of a future multiminority society and Iris Marion
Young (1989) in lieu of “a universal citizenship in the sense of this
generality, we need a group differentiated citizenship and a
heterogeneous public.” (Young 1989, p.258) In a later work she outlines
more practical implications and turns to justice, which ‘in a group-
differentiated society demands social equality of groups and mutual
recognition and affirmation of group differences.” (2005, p.101) Conflicts
between different groups are systematic but do not arise by “difference
per se, but rather the relations of domination and oppression between
groups that produce resentment, hostility, and resistance among
oppressed.” (2005, p.91, Isin sees in this the pushing force through history
to struggle for citizenship) A nation based on multiple citizenships
therefore provides a layered citizenship and diverse opportunities to
practice them both symbolically and spatially. Complicating factor are the
changing circumstances of post modern times affecting to very relevant
instances for citizenship, the ongoing dismantling of the family and the
erosion of the nation state.
The nation state, as important reference of identity, is eroding loosing its
social (and cultural), political, and economic unity. Sassen (2003) speaks
of denationalization of different domains leading to hybrid forms which are
neither local or global, nor state or private (e.g. denationalized
citizenship). At the same time postmodernity blurs the traditional meaning
of public and private, which are shaped in Western thoughts by the
opposition of the oikos and the polis (Arendt 1958). Richard Sennett
outlines three contributing forces at play since Enlightment: the impact of

The Open City – A Matter of Access? 4

new capital, the reformulation of secularism and the fact that public life
survived its own death (Sennett 1992, p.19). First force brought the
pressure of privatization and the material life in public, second changed
the way otherness was perceived and the third led to a “decay which has
been continuously eroding the body from within.” (Sennett 1992, p.19)
The reaction was an overemphasis on the remaining grasp, the private in
those days epitomized by the family. This cellule “became refuge from the
terrors of society” (Sennett 1992, p.20), and even more, it served as a
moral shelter. The public instead turned out to be judged against the
background of the private and met with certain hostility.2 The
consequences of the public life were that “one’s behaviour in public was
altered in its fundamental terms. Silence in public became the only way
one could experience public life.” (Sennett 1992, p.27) To day the urbanite
remains, according to Sennett ‘the actor deprived of his art’ which is the
root of the increasing solitude in our society, aggravating conflicts, and
intolerance. One valve to compensate for the feeling of loss has come
from a very force causing it: the market. Already Jean Baudrillard labelled
the ‘Consumer Society’ in 1970, a visionary predicting the most severe
consequences of late capitalism on society and nations. Baudrillard (1998)
described the power of consumer goods, slowly attaining meaning and
replacing other instances of identification. The consumer society is a
society in which individuals derive their status and even personality by the
consumption of goods (Crawfod 1992, Zukin 2005). Consumption has
caducity at its foundation consequently in contrast to former references
like the state it renews (and reinvents) itself. There are numerous citations
to religion, the processor of the nation, as instance of identification (see
Crossik & Jaumain Eds. 1999). Both are based on unattainable goals:
salvation on one side is replaced by satisfaction on the other. The pursuit
for satisfaction has unclenched a larger discourse stretching the hype for
frills, excitement and surprise (Sorkin 1999). In the words of Rem Koolhaas
a populist of the architectural profession, there is the need for a
continuous ‘the next big thing’ (Chung & Koolhaas 2001). This
phenomenon is global, despite its country or culture-based facets, its
underlying dynamics are the same and transgress all domains. As
mentioned earlier class in a traditional way is eroding and with the
dismantling of the traditional family nucleus the spots are vacant for a
new construct of attachment and identification.
Lifestyles are the predominant way how people of our times identify and
delineate themselves from others. Lifestyles are “patterns of action that
differentiate people” (Chaney, 1996, 4) and thus started well before
industrialization exerted its largest impact on society. The difference to
forms prior the 20th century is that lifestyles followed different lines of
identification as religion, political status or class. Work is not perceived
anymore as the defining characteristic (although still very relevant) but
communities defined on a comparable way of life. This is not completely
different to the clustering of classes in the 19th century but must be
understood as its societal logic consequence. Class according to Max
Weber represents a group of similar market situation (See Isin 1997,
p.118). With the employment diversification of the service economy not
resource accessibility but way of consumption represents a line of
similarity (contrary position in Isin 1999).

The Open City – A Matter of Access? 5

Public and Publicness
In this above mentioned logic people not willing or able to consume are
slowly perceived as standing outside of society. Aggravating this tendency
is the invasion of consumption in public space excluding lager shares of
society. For Hannah Arendt and Jürgen Habermas the public was not
physically but ideological and thus defined by its universal accessiblity.
The public manifests in moments where people interact with each other,
central to Hannah Arendt’s argumentation in human condition is Handeln,
the action of the individuals. Following Aristotle’s description of the polis,
exchange in form of seeing, been seen and verbally express are pivotal
levels of activity. It is the very nature of humanity to act politically (zóon
politikón, often wrongly referred to as social). Unlike the other dimensions
of the vitae activa (work, labor) action requires the presence of others and
thus is part of the domain of the public.
For Hannah Arendt the public realm contribute to three effects linked to
space. First as it spans longer than a human lifetime, it memorizes society
(see also Carmona et.al. 2003, p.109), it guarantees encounter for
different people, and is accessible for all. Public space describes
configurations of power and exchange (see Madanipour 2003b, p.96), for
both dimensions access are the key-defining concepts. Access consists of
“access to the place as well as to the activities within it.” (Madanipour
2003b, p.141) Spatial manifestations are the fundament of most group
forming processes and define the difference between real and virtual
groups. “The existence of class or group must emerge out of practices of
symbolic representation.” (Isin 1999, p.272) For Arendt public per
definition (publicus is deduced from popolus, the people) require
unrestricted access allowing broad interactions. Only in those
circumstances actions (Handeln) and reflexion (Denken) create a political
space that is based on a plurality of people.
If looking at the postmodern urban landscape an increasing privatization
of spaces can be observed. The traditional public space (squares, streets)
is declining all over the world as consequence of the reduced municipal
financial powers and has been increasingly invaded by private interests.
Public space where anyone is entitled to be physically present”
(Madanipour 2003b, p.141) being “the stage which the drama of
communal life unfolds.” (Carr et.al. 1993, p.3) must be highly questioned.
Already Hannah Arendt was pessimistic about the American political realm
as capitalism increasingly penetrated politics and living conditions. Rios
reminds us we are not primary consumers or clients but citizens (2008,
p.215). The effects “of privatization of space and the threat of social
fragmentation pose as serious threat for the future of the city”
(Madanipour 2003b, p.149). There are fewer and fewer places where
actually different social groups meet. The fundamental meaning of public
space, where “people can learn to live together”(Carr et.al. 1993, p.20) is
under serious threat. What is needed for a sustainable society and thus
environment is a democratic public. A democratic public provides
“mechanisms for the effective representation and recognition of the
distinct voices and perspectives of those of its constituent groups that are
oppressed or disadvantaged within it.” (Young 1989, p.262) As Isin
outlines to right to the city pertains “the right to claim presence in the
city, to wrest the use of the city from privileged new masters and
democratize its spaces” (Isin, 2000, p.14) The marginals require as much

The Open City – A Matter of Access? 6

a public sphere for their own as spaces where diverse societal layers
meet. Tolerance starts with knowledge of the other which perquisite
presence and encounter. We have seen historically public space was never
accessible to all or neutral. Its access has been restricted to others, and its
function used for representation of different powers. So far we have seen
that the changing geography of globalization has altered the power
structure of different layers of society. The global city as any urbis before
is the “site of conflicts over resources, representation, and rights.” (Isin
1999, p.269) While there is an emerging class of greater heterogeneity in
racial, occupational and lifestyle patterns, benefiting from greater
connectivity and amenities there are marginal groups that are excluded
from such changes in a contingently and structurally manner. The
marginalization is both social and spatial at the same time, any approach
to better the current situation need to address both dimensions. We will
see later by focusing on Brazil’s democratization its foucs on social
changes have limited its impact, as spatially marginalization persisted. In
this perspective public space having been outlined so far as result of neo-
liberal transformations of global consumerism bears the potential to
promote and stimulate change.

Marginality
The concept of marginality is ‘pivotal’ to any research, “where multiple
causal linkages and relationships need to be investigated and understood
to extract meaningful insights for scientific research.” (Gurung & Kollmair
2005, p.18). Marginality will help us to link public space to poverty and
citizenship. For a larger historic outline of the marginality concept we refer
to the work of Billie Davis (1997) as we concentrate on the concept of
advanced marginality.Advanced according to Loic Wacquant (1996, 1999,
2008) means that this phenomenon is ahead of us ‘etched on the horizon
of the becoming of contemporary societies (2008, p.232). Unlike its
processing form of the 1960s and -70s advanced marginality became rigid
as marginals ceased to be affected by economic fluctuations (Wacquant,
1996, 124). Marginality, initially emphasized a dynamic process, even
seen temporal (Gurung and Kollmair, 2005, p.11) has now become a
condition, a vicious circle substantiated by global economy and sanctioned
by local governments. Marginality can be defined as “the temporary state
of having been put aside of living in relative isolation, at the edge of a
system (cultural, social, political or economic)” (IGU-link). It is therefore a
relational model, positioning a group towards a mainstream. Marginality is
the status of exclusion of (global or formal) economy, political
participation, access of societal or spatial resources, modernity and
sometimes even society. Development per se produces both inequality
and inequity in society and space (Sommer et.al. 1999, p.20) as the
process of flexible accumulation is inherently unstable and self reinforcing
(Harvey 2006, p.95f). The growing discrepancy between rich and poor
over the last decades are an appropriate proof of this: In Brazil itself the
share of favela dwellers increased from four percent in 1980 to almost 20
percent in 1993 while the wealth discrepancy grew sharply in the last
decades. Today Brazil possesses a Gini coefficient of 0,62 meaning that
while the poorest 20% possess only 1.5% of total income, the value of the
richest 10% is 49%. (D’Ambrosio & Rodrigues 2008, p.1094) According to
Janice Perlman, the poor, based on her research on favelados in Rio de
Janeiro “are not marginal to Brazilian society but integrated in a manner

The Open City – A Matter of Access? 7

detrimental to their interests. They are not socially marginal but rejected,
not economically marginal but exploited, and not politically marginal but
repressed” (Perlman, 1976).

Social Marginality
The first dimension of marginality is its social dimension (de la Rocha
et.al., 2004, Gurung & Kollmair 2005, Wacquant 2008) which “is basically
a second-class citizenship in which disadvantage derives from the
differentiation produced by the institutions of the state.” (de la Rocha
et.al., 2004, p.196). Marginal populations are outcasts (Wacquant 2008) of
mainstream society. It is important to discern marginality from poverty as
they are not interchangeably (e.g. dalits, drug dealers, who are
marginalized but economical powerful). Social marginality represents a
state of absence of modality. Already the sociologist Marcel Mauss 3 has
defined the realm of the social being the realm of modality. Marginal
people do not have other options than living in hazardous locations, using
unreliable transportation, receiving reduced and expensive services and
being excluded from society and political representation. We see here that
marginality is also very spatial in its nature.

Spatial Marginality
Space is essential for the process humans situate themselves into the
world and relate to others. As a consequence to the constraints in length
of this conference contribution we refer to the work of others (Morris 2004,
Harvey 2006). The importance of geography is increasingly identified by
social sciences. The spatial turn (Crang & Thrift 2000, Gunn 2001)
prescribes the (re)discovery of space as cultural dimension, away from the
concept of ‘container’ (Lefebvre 1991). Geographies are not only essential
to understand the zoning out of otherness but also its underlying
dynamics. Groups define themselves in relation to each other, even more
they “cannot materialize themselves as real without realizing themselves
in space […]” (see Isin 2002, p.43f). This starts with representation and
exchange in the public sphere and ends with buildings creating
boundedness. The city is the machine of such formative processes and
more is the product of historical layers of social groups (Mumford 1966).
Cities are an accumulation of material, human practices and technologies
(Read, 2006, p.2). The waterways gave way to roads then railways than
highways, aircrafts and high-speed trains. The new technologies were
always spatially embedded in former ones, whether following their
corridors or concentrating in their spatial accumulation. For the same
reason the initial claim globalization would destabilize practices and
ultimately lead to dispersed activities have proven wrong. Postmodern
space-time compression (Harvey 1990) have intensified concentrations of
power and not annihilated them. With such intensification grows the gap
between concentration and other areas that are left out. The central
business district and slums are both products of global forces, bound into
the urban structure by spatial and non spatial infrastructure (see Sassen
1996). Highways, railways and airplanes are new scales of displacements
that illustrate the problem of spatial marginality in two ways. A large share
of the population in developing countries is excluded from these new
modes of transports, while on the same time there infrastructures often
represent great barriers. Topographies, politics, society and history have
altered the flat surface of the city into a landscape of powers, whereas

The Open City – A Matter of Access? 8

spatial marginality represents the left-over spaces of such forces. This
dimension of marginality is called contingent and inherent to market
competitions (See Mehretu et.al 2000). But there is another kind often
adding to the outcasting of people. The “systemic marginality is a
deliberate social construction by the dominant class to achieve specific
desirable outcomes of political control, social exclusion and economic
exploitation” (Mehretu et.al. 2000, p.92). This marginality is a
consequence of social structure and depends largely on the political
system (see Brazil before 1986). The new urban poor or advanced
marginals are often systematically excluded and stigmatized in space and
society. These stigmatized spaces are increasingly detached from the
central parts of urban agglomerations. With globalization the city was
ripped of its integrative powers, as functions started to fragment, first by
the possibilities of mass transportations then by the power of the
automobile, common spatial interfaces are decreasing. The emergence of
gated communities and other off worlds is not only a spatial manifestation
of life style clustering but symbolic exclusion. We will exemplify such
development using São Paulo’s historical development of urban structure
and public space to later address some ways citizenship and access to
public space may be promoted by the architectural profession.

São Paulo’s socio-spatial development

To better understand São Paulo’s current spatial configuration, mostly a
product of an accelerated development in the last century, we first deliver
some essential insights to the social and economical currents thriving its
growth. We will do this by discussing four different eras (periods derived
from: Reis, 2004): the colonial and imperial city (Kingdom, 1554-1889),
the European city (Republic, 1889-1930), the American city (1930-1986)
and the, democratic city (1986-current). These periods coincide with
political changes on federal level, but are furthermore periods marked by
social and technical changes/innovations that had an important impact in
the way the city of São Paulo spatially developed.
Even though being the capital of the ‘capitania’4, São Paulo’s economy
started small-scale and primitive. Its growth had been slow during the
imperial period and had experienced an incipient growth during especially
the end of the imperial era. In terms of socio-spatial configuration, São
Paulo had been dense and heterogeneous until the end of the period
(Caldeira, 2000). The colonial city was inhabited by Portuguese rulers,
their corollary and merchants while the poor settled outside of the city.
Nevertheless, the streets of colonial São Paulo revealed its social
homogeneity through the constant presence of slaves (Reis, 2004). The
function of public space had been largely the same during both the
colonial and imperial period. During the colonial era, public space had and
important function for the colonial ‘elite’: very similar to European
Renaissance and Baroque planning squares, statues, fountains and
churches were constructed by public authorities to display the power of
those in charge. The slow growth of the city until about 1880 allowed a
careful crafting of such public designs. After Brazil’s independence in
1822, the political interest in urban design remained intense. 5. At the end
of the imperial era there were not yet exclusively residential
neighbourhoods, though some social segmentation slowly surfaced. The
lower and hillier areas were characterized by popular and industrial

The Open City – A Matter of Access? 9

neighbourhoods, while the more expensive higher and plainer areas
attracted residences of the richer population. The concentration of
investments in the latter areas accentuated the emerging socio-spatial
fragmentation. From around 1889 two important factors gave accelerated
urban growth: firstly the coffee-boom 6, but more important for the city was
the formation of the Republic and the transition from slavery to
remunerated labour. The first was influential since it weakened the
position of the capital Rio de Janeiro making São Paulo more independent,
which led to an increase in the accumulation of coffee related gains.
Secondly, the transition to wage labour introduced a new profile in the
income distribution, generating a multiplication effect in the internal
market. The end of the 19th century became a period of abundant wealth
for São Paulo as a whole. With a technical and social modernization
Republican leaders practically rebuilt the city after 18897 in reproducing
European urban reforms, especially Paris. Various parks, theatres8, and
hypodromes were opened in the beginning of the 19th century. First
(luxury) warehouses emerged, but even plans for (Parisian) galleries were
made. As a result of unbridled growth from private allotments of terrains,
the urban tissue of São Paulo became fragmented right since the start of
its inflated urban growth. Contributing factor is the incapacity of planning
authorities to cope with the challenges it posed, lagging always behind:
instead of anticipative planning the planning profession became a sort of
ad-hoc problem solving. Their activities shifted away from the design of
public places to the stitching and weaving of (legal and illegally)
constructed urban areas/allotments, (Reis, 2004). The geographical centre
of São Paulo continued to concentrate public life, trade, commerce, banks,
markets and offices, but at the same time accommodated residential
neighbourhoods for the masses of new immigrants which strongly varied
in income. Even though the city of 1900 is commonly described as dense
and diverse/mixed, concentrations of elites (around Luz) and poor
manifested as distinct forms (Reis 2004, p.124), steered by a fear of
epidemics – similar to the fear of crime today (Caldeira, 2000).
São Paulo’s rapid growth continued under the military regime that came
into power after the 1964 coup, paired with a strong faith in progress
shared by all citizens (Caldeira & Holsten 2005, p.395). The city became a
genuine metropolis and the industrial capital of South America. The
production of automobiles became the biggest engine of industrialization.
The construction of highways took a flight from the 1950’s onwards
accompanied by the dismantling of the tram system. The use of the
private car opened the possibilities for alternative localizations of
functions for those in position to afford one. Combined with the fading of
the tramway system, differences in mobility became an important factor in
socio-economic fragmentation. São Paulo’s mayor business district moved
to Avenida Paulista – about 6 kilometres from the historical centre - at the
end of the 60’s, the cities first shopping mall was realized in 1966 and a
decade later the initial stage of Alphaville – São Paulo’s first edge city was
opened in Baueri, some 25 kilometres from the city centre and outside
São Paulo’s municipal borders. Until 1970s Modern Planning ideas
dominated developments in Brazil (Machado 2008, p.98). “In the Faustian
sense, the project of modernist planning is to transform an unwanted
present in means of an imagined future.” (Holston 1998, p.40). The
discourse about the Brazilian city was dominated by ideas that formed the
triangle sanitize, circulate and beautify. These ideas directed all proposals in
urban space to construct an image of the modern city (Moura Filha 2000,

The Open City – A Matter of Access? 10

p.65). The city was seen as the symbol of modernity, (Machado 2008,
p.98) urbanism and architecture assumed the task to represent the
grandeur of the city, and to inscribe bourgeois order into urban space
(Ibd.). Despite the modern image of the city as holistic
object/case/machine, already in this period the aesthetic and urbanistic
reordering did not apply to the agglomeration as a whole, but only to
those scenarios planned for the lifeworlds of the elites, rejecting a mayor
part of urban reality incompatible with the ideas of progress of that time.
After the initial economical successes of the military regime, the financial
malaise during the 80’s virtually froze Brazil’s economic growth for a
decade giving rise to a diversity of social, economical hardships (and
brought some tensions to the fore), especially in its largest metropolitan
areas. The mythology of progress started to collapse during the 1980’s:
the so-called Lost Decade. The Lost Decade was characterized by sharp
population growth (millions of Brazilians from the North-East moved to São
Paulo), flight of the middle and urban class, erosion of GNP and per capita
income linked to the industrial reorganization implied by neoliberal
policies of economic globalization. The percentage of slums began to rise
from the beginning of the 70’s and passed through an enormous increase
through the course of the 80’s. The aggravated living conditions for the
poor masses created social friction and called for other responses to the
situation at hand. The circumstances led to Brazil’s democratization in the
year 1986. Theresa Caldeira, who carefully described this development
concludes that the spatial developments after democratization despite
major democratizations in the planning process and a closer spatial
relation between richer and poorer population was not paralleled by a
democratization/egalitarization of urban space. As Caldeira observes
brightly, ‘São Paulo shows that the polity and the public space of the city
can develop in opposite directions’ (Caldeira 2000, 322). While the poor
received stronger political voices their spatial marginality intensified as
consequence of equating democracy with neoliberalism. Most of the urban
transformations in the last two decades are broadly not the result of
imposed state policies, but rather the product of private enterprises. The
segregation of middle and higher income groups into gated enclaves
(residential and other functions) catered to the demands of its inhabitants
for more security. Ten years after democratization (1996) the rate of
murder per hundred thousand population reached 47.3, a value
significantly higher than the 1981 rate of 14.62.” (Caldeira and Holston
1999, p.696). Yet, the claim – that segregation into enclaves was a direct
result of increased crime rates and a consequent increase of fear - is
contested by several academic scholars. As for example Caldeira argues;
“at least ten years before violent crime increased and became one of the
main concerns of São Paulo’s residents, the insecurity of the city was
already being constructed in real estate images to justify a new type of
urban development and investment.” (Caldeira, 2000) During the 90’s, the
city experienced an upsurge in the construction of gated enclaves -
especially since 1990 - for which São Paulo later became known as the
City of Walls.9 The sense of insecurity is favourable factor for market
developers, which suggests that they may well have had an important role
in constructing a ‘culture of fear’. In recent years São Paulo experienced a
sharp drop in homicides to 15 per 100.000 in 2006 (Goertzel, T., & Kahn,
T, 2007)10, while the construction of gated enclaves is still increasing. The
walls and controls in city space create limits to democratization. “Through
the creation of walls, residents re-create hierarchies, privileges, exclusive

The Open City – A Matter of Access? 11

spaces, and rituals of segregation where they have just been removed
from the political sphere.” (Caldeira 2000, p.322). A city of walls counters
democratic possibilities. Instead of strengthening citizenship, the city of
walls contributes to its erosion.
Modern’ thinking has been replaced by market or post-modernistic
thinking. The utopia of a polis as a place of encounter and agonistic
confrontation (Mouffe 2000) is negated by the pragmatism of the city as
space, object and subject of trade. (Vainer 2002, p.101). Sameness and
otherness is defined along the line of consumption, the fragmentation of
the urban fabric substantiated by economic forces re-inscribing its logic.
We have seen that polity as a right and activity has been very spatial in
the past, its reduction to a detached sphere a threat to sustainable society
as differences require encounter and exchange. The dispersion of urban
functions and despatialization of some it its activities “have created
multiple non-converging networks working against the cohesive nodal role
of the urban public sphere.” (Madanipour 2003b, p.144) This is the
difference between diversity and fragmentation, latter being the
unconnected difference. “Rather than […] the creation of exclusive
enclaves and nodes, the development of truly public spaces is expected to
promote a degree of tolerance and social cohesion.” (Madanipour 2003b,
p.148) The defined, stratifying character of these post-modern ‘privatized
public spaces’ has created a diversity of public spaces that do not
correspond to the ideal of publicness. However, produced by globalization
and catering to the demand of a changing society. If we have lost the
traditional public maybe we experience simply the formulation of a new
modern public. A society of multiple lifestyles has already produced the
plea for a concept of multiple citizenships. Linking this idea to our
discourse a need for spatial diversity is evident. The postmodern public
spaces that often handle the dimension of openness, equality and
heterogeneity in a very different way are not per definition erosive to
society, but only their exclusive character. If such spaces would be
embedded in a system of public spaces, fragmentation would dissolve in
diversity. By increasing the range of public spaces someone uses in a city
and creating interfaces where (some) differences may occur; more
sustainable coexistence might be promoted. We will make our point
clearer in the final chapter of this paper.

City Space Investigations and beyond

The CSI workshop followed a classic threefold setup, preparation, on-site
and postproduction phase (for more information see csi-
sp.urbandetectives.com). The Pre.SP started in February and consisted of
weekly lecture blocks, in April the on-site workshop took place in São
Paulo. In a dialectic setup bright and hidden sides of the city were visited
in a half-day rhythm, among the locations were inner city corticos and
Alphaville. In the second week participants were asked to elaborate their
research proposals. Final results were presented at the FAU-USP and
revealed some remarkable sharp observations and interesting
approaches. Very dominantly reoccurring, although students were given
total freedom, was the topic of public space. Obviously due to the time
constraint the different projects miss depth but in their superficial nature
they raise some very sparkling ideas. There are undoubtedly some places
that seem to embody the ideal of public space as outlined by Arendt. One
example is the Ibirapueira Park, which during the weekends is populated

The Open City – A Matter of Access? 12

by citizens from (almost) all layers of São Paulo’s inhabitants. During week
days the region around Paulista Avenue shows the same receptivity to
welcome and connect different layers of society. But they are more
exception than the rules. There are various examples of well functioning
and accessible public spaces also in the more peripheral areas of São
Paulo. Yet, these spaces are functional island in the desert of post-modern
publicness. It is especially the ‘system’ of public spaces that lacks in São
Paulo. The way in which in contemporary São Paulo the public is
composed as a system of spaces of agonistic pluralism (Mouffe, 2000)
remains weak. What are missing are both the connection between public
spaces and their overlap in user groups in form of a nested system. The
stratified public spaces of shopping malls and marginal spaces are the
dominant form of the cities of walls. Despite unfavorable conditions and
the fact that tendencies seem to go in the opposite directions it is
particular important to imagine at least possible ways out. Two workshop
participants addressed the issues of imagination, representation, and
identity on very different scales in the urban environment. One proposed
to give former advertisement structures and blank house walls to
marginals to represent city images or better said images of the city. This is
a refreshing attempt to mingle again the presence of different social
layers in everyday experience via the dimension of representation. To
change the segregation of São Paulo’s urban space first a mental shift is
required. To tear the physical walls of the city someone needs first to
break down the mental walls in the heads of Paulistas. The more relevant
their idea becomes if linking it with the research of Sharon Zukin. For her a
public culture, which emerges of the overlap of polity and media involves
‘both shaping public space for social interaction and constructing a visual
representation of the city.” (Zukin 1996, p.24) Interestingly other
participants directly connected with their work on public space to this
theme. Public Space, ‘where strangers meet’, is the interface of exchange
AND also the structure of the way we perceive our world, therefore it holds
the potential to tear down mental AND spatial walls of the São Paulo. The
broken networks of the public web lead to clusters of publicness and
activities poorly connected among each other and restricted in their
accessibility. A valid strategy for spatial and social inclusion would be a
diversification and widening of any publicness. This approach would be
based on the expansion of liberties: the concept of ‘unconditional
welcome’ is pivotal to the research of one of the author (Guatelli 2008)
and represents one extreme of public space rights. An unconditional
welcome stretches beyond the right to access public space but enable its
use for all. This is already a reality for some spaces, but these are mostly
marginal. An interesting exception has been explored by two participants,
the Minhocão, an inner-city elevated highway that closes down for traffic
over night and in the weekends: an urban void is transformed into running
and bicycle tracks.
In practice a strategy would most likely result in conflicts and lead to
anarchic situations in most spaces. Public space must be finally perceived
as a system. Within São Paulo there exist a diverse range of different
spaces with proper qualities and potentials. A strategy could be aiming to
unlock these different potentials by classifying the current state of the art.
Depending on the category different uses (from privatizing spaces in
forms of shelter for homeless to restricted spaces of closed communities)
could result in a diverse but more balanced form. There is a fundamental
lack of research in this direction, a systematic recording of public space

The Open City – A Matter of Access? 13

there very starting point of any further investigation. Consequently we are
currently carrying out field research in São Paulo, first results – hopefully
graphical evidence of the city of wall in forms of maps of a small amount
of case study areas – will be presented at the conference. The selection
criteria was based on a focus on new forms of public-private space
hybrids. Where such new spaces beyond shopping malls and enclaves can
be found, has been elaborated by two students who investigated street art
and pavements as tools of appropriation. Both activities, operating
technically in legal grey zones, result in a privatization of publicness and
thus a diversification of their common degree.
The question of how public space can – once again - become (a network
of) social interfaces/learning devices has been also addresses by Richard
Sennett (2005). The authors see urban Design as a discipline between the
architectural scale on the one hand, and the large scale discipline of urban
planning on the other as a key in this regard. Politicians and planners
undoubtedly have possibilities in their hands to make changes that
directly affect the city, its public spaces and its inhabitants. However São
Paulo’s past has shown that this theoretical power has seldom been
translated in real changes and even more urbanization is an increasing
privately driven matter. Who will be the actors of change then? There is an
extensive literature on grass roots movement and civic society as
alternative to top-down initiatives. In City of Walls Theresa Caldeira
concludes that the ‘significant improvement on the periphery is to a large
extent the result of the political action of its residents who, since the late
1970’s, have organized social movements to claim their rights as city
residents’ (Caldeira, 2000, p.236), what James Holston calls ‘insurgent
citizenship’11. In other words, it has been the pro-active attitude of the
citizen (collectives) that have been the engine of progressive social and
spatial change. Building on this, we would like to ask what could be the
role of the architect in a process of transformation? In this context the
term of architect is not confined to a degree holder but to a person who
emphasizes the built environment and whose concern is foremost spatial.
The architectural profession has lost any ideological claim. Since
modernism, larger visions about a future have been replaced by
celebrations of singular creations. Undoubtedly the CIAM plans were
blueprints of the future, waiting for society to adopt while giving the power
to the state to implement change on this large level and flawed as they
failed “to consider the unintended and the unexpected as part of the
model” (Holston 1998, p.46). But at least there was a societal concern of
the architect for its profession. Questions of what kind of city we would
like to live in should be present again on the drawing boards to result in
projects that aim to change the erosion of publicness. The planning culture
of Brazil is favourable. A considerable amount of architects refute to work
for the market and assist in the commercial architectural production of
anti-urban apartment buildings and gated enclaves as they do not want to
be related to this neo-liberal, over-commercialized vernacular
architecture. This commitment should go beyond denial as remaining
outside the market and production of urban space will not lead to change
just eventually slow down its decay. Embedding this claim within our
former discussion the concern of the architect should be projects to
maximize the unconditional welcome, to stimulate publicness and
strengthen citizenship. In context of insurgent citizenships, the architect
should assist to translate community needs into innovative spatial
solutions. Like the ‘assesorias’ in mutirão projects, where the architects,

The Open City – A Matter of Access? 14

sociologists and jurists of the assesoria lend themselves to the popular
collective that proposes the mutirão. Yet, the architect could take a pro-
active position in this process. We are trying to develop such stimuli by
organizing yearly workshops focusing on specific problematic topics. Still
in this stage focused on developing visions on long term it is hoped to
create enough discussion to translate some ideas in precise interventions.
In the next year we hope to use the investigations of the public space
structure to reflect on possible strategies to enable multiple publicness.

Conclusion
We have tried to show the importance of public space as primary
interfaces of exchange and tool to counter erosive tendencies in post-
modern societies. Through time spaces in the city have been matter of
control and exclusion on the one side and representation and exchange on
the other. In theory a sustainable society in the 21st century should equally
allow its citizen to access resources, in practice inequalities were and are
inherent to development and inscribed in space and politics. A strategic
use of public space to enable encounter of multiple citizens could counter
the spatial marginality faced by the weakest income groups. The architect,
traditionally envisioning better future, should play a key role in a process
of spatial democratization becoming a pro-active agent of change.

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1
The exact meaning of class will given more space later in this chapter
2
It was the time of the Restauration with public surveillance and political repression. Further there
existed the common belief that inner emotions translate into readable body signs.
3
Mauss, 1929, Les civilisations: éléments et formes, In Oeuvres, vol. 2: Représentations collectives
et diversité des civilisations (1968). Paris: Editions de Minuit.
4
Capitania: administrative unit used by the Portuguese colonizers.
5
For example, the construction of street lightning, started by the Portuguese, with the objective to
transmit an image of order and discipline, was continued by the dominant classes after 1822 to
attend their political objectives. For further reading: Reis, ‘Vila, Cidade, Metropole’, 2004.
6
In fact the rise in production and export of coffee started halfway the 18th century and had not
directly yielded much for São Paulo.
7
From 65.000 in 1980 to 240.000 in 1900.
8
most parks and theatres were built on private initiative and for commercial use.
9
Interestingly, the fragmentation of urban space (favelas, shopping malls, edge cities, CBDs, etc.) was accompanied by the
relocation of the rich into the peripheries of the city (instead of sub-urbanization, like the white flight in the USA) while the
increasing amount of poor citizens moved to the abandoned city centre. The consequence has been an urban structure in
which rich and poor are living more closely than during the former decades.
10
Despite the fact this number this number falls short to New York City (7 in 2004) it compares
very favourably with the rates reported by Detroit (42), Baltimore (44) and Washington, D.C. (36)
in the same year.
11
Insurgent citizenship: practices that work against established conditions of inequality and provide alternatives for
including citizens and distributing rights ’ (Holston, 1999). For example the active movements among the poor in São Paulo
that confront problems of urbanization, land tenure, government regulation, state violence, and misrule of law.