São Paulo: The New Urban Agenda Implementation Experience. Public Space Planning and Private Use Regulation: Towards a City for Each and Everyone

The main idea of this Side Event is to connect already implemented policies with the proposals of the New Urban Agenda, while discussing how they were implemented in the municipality of São Paulo, Brazil’s largest city. The discussion will follow the point of view of governance, with comments from a range of actors that interact with government in such governance. Also important is the demonstration of how certain policies express, concretely, the realization of the right to the city. Therefore, the areas discussed will encompass urban as well as social and economic oriented policies, with a holistic approach to the City. These include policies oriented to fight against inequalities and making the city accessible to all and everyone. The policies discussed will include those designed to provide and reinforce real citizenship to women and transgender, to the youth, migrants and people in drug addiction, among others. Affordable housing, streets open to pedestrians, well-connected, fast and comfortable collective transportation complement actions taken to improve social and economic development towards a more just city. In the case of São Paulo, a Strategic Master Plan (Plano Diretor Estratégico – PDE) passed as a law contains legal instruments that allow the incorporation, by the State, of part of the surplus value generated by real estate market. It also allows the promotion of a virtuous circle of local development, encouraging, for example, local agriculture whose produce can be bought by the government to supply part of the circa 2 million meals consumed daily in the City’s public schools. Discussing already implemented actions can shed a light on both how government policies can be turned into State policies, as well as how cities and city governments can promote local development while improving the lives of each and all of its citizens.