Plans of Territorial Ordering: Laws for a New Urban Agenda

Land ordering planning for the development of large urban centers should address important issues for a change of heart on urban policy, guided by principles of the property’s social function and reasoned on the right to the city. Embedded within the contemporary spatial plans, there should be tools that generate feasibility of implementing them, distancing the administrative action from being only rhetorical. Sharing with the people the responsibility to plan and manage the city, while providing ways to experience the territory should be the basic principle of the rules that govern the appropriation of public spaces. The debate’ focus is how laws of land use interfere on private interests, how they guarantee the collective interests and how to qualify or disqualify the public space and the city as a whole, preparing it for a sustainable future or the collapse of its structures. Changes in the master plans of Brazilian cities - São Paulo and Belo Horizonte - incorporate concepts of contemporary urbanism, related to the rational use of the urban structure and the expansion of urbanity conditions. The alternatives on disposal can be improved and used as a foundation to encourage other governments to promote adjustments to a new way of living in the city, developing it as a prosperous, balanced and resilient set. Everyone is seeking to solve challenges and answer global issues from the local planning connected to the global urban network, such as: urbanizing without gentrify; developing while minimizing environmental impacts; moving around by cheap, safe and sustainable ways, compatible with the preservation of the environment; ensuring decent housing for all; optimizing the use of urban structure without saturating the spaces; promoting economic growth while minimizing the social differences and ensuring everyone access to work, goods and services; modernizing urban infrastructure without losing its symbols.