Over the past several decades, two movements have dominated the shape of Cairo: one of capital and one of people. Under the banner of urban deconcentration, the government invested billions of dollars in the new desert cities outside of Cairo such as the 6^th of October City and New Cairo, sold off state-owned desert lands worth billions more to private interests at subsidized prices, and established special economic development zones to attract more investment. Many new, high-class, gated, urban enclaves replete with swimming pools and nicely trimmed lawns are being built and advertised as a tranquil haven away from the noise and pollution of Cairo proper. Parallel to this development was the emergence of informal Cairo Egypt’s urban population which has more than doubled over the past 25 years. The Greater Cairo region has grown from 8 million people in 1980 to between 16 and 18 million people today. As the population increased, so has the demand for affordable housing, which the government did very little to provide. Instead of moving to the desert cities as the government planners and bureaucrats hoped, millions of people took matters into their own hands, and built homes for themselves on the periphery of Egypt’s urban areas, creating vast informal and relatively unplanned settlements. Some 80 percent of these were constructed on increasingly scarce agricultural land. Contrary to the hopes of the desert city enthusiasts, most of the growth in Cairo over the past three decades was in these informal areas such that more than 60 percent of Cairenes now live in them as opposed to just 10 percent in the new cities (Sims, 2009).

What would Cairo look like today if the planners, bureaucrats and ministry officials had shelved their own visions of what Cairo should be and instead, attempted to understand the needs and wants of the city’s people? Of course one major issue at hand is that there was no way for citizens to express their opinions directly to the government, nor was the government interested in listening. The revolution of 2011 may mean that the government may listen more to its citizens, if it hopes to be re-elected. The other is that there has never been a collective, citizen-driven effort in Egypt to define an alternative urban agenda that puts people first.

Brazil offers a model example of how a transition from an authoritarian regime to a democratic one can be used to increase the cultural currency of social justice and urban reform. In this post-revolutionary moment of transition in Egypt, what might Egyptians learn from the Brazilian experience? How can Egyptians mobilize, organize, and plan strategically to transform the built environment in their communities and infuse public service provision and local governance with the norms of social justice and democracy? We present the history of urban reform in Brazil, to provoke ideas about how Egyptians can claim their “right to the city” and meet the challenges of urban development, in a more participatory fashion.

Urban Reform in Brazil

The National Urban Reform Movement (NURM) formed in 1985 to influence the making of the constitution and to influence public opinion and the National Congress that was preparing a New Constitution (de Souza 2001). It built on prior pro-poor, pro-democracy social movements supported by labor unions, civil organizations, residents’ associations, and the progressive branch of the Catholic Church steeped in liberation theology (Fernandes 2007). The overarching goal of the movement was to deepen democracy by linking citizen participation in governance and urban development with professionals who worked in urbanism in order to promote a platform of urban reform. This movement, comprised of professional associations, academics, political leaders, and neighborhood associations, sought to change the urban development paradigm in Brazil, to establish an entirely new social ethic where social justice is central to the process of urban planning and decision making (Sugranyes and Mathivet, 2010). Urban reform was not a simple reshaping of the city fabric for the NURM but:

. . . a transformation of specific aspects of city life itself in order to attain the goals of social justice and equity. It is above all a social reform which encompasses a spatial dimension and the purpose of which is the reform of the institutions regulating power and the production of space, and not primarily a reform of the city’s physical form (De Souza 2001, 25).

Urban inequality in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Source: domusweb.it

Although NURM had ideological roots that predate the military regime, this urban reform agenda was in part, a response to the conservative modernist development approach institutionalized by the military rule between 1964 and 1985. The period of unprecedented economic growth and growing inequality between 1968 and 1974 known as the “Brazilian Miracle” allowed the central government to leverage large amounts of debt from foreign lenders at low interest rates, which they used, in turn, to develop the country’s transportation and telecommunications infrastructure. This subsidized development gave the government undue confidence in their highly centralized, technocratic, interventionist approach to regional development and city planning which was entirely exclusive of citizen input (Martine and McGranahan 2010). Military rule undermined the powers of the municipal government and degraded the quality of democracy at all levels of government (Fernandes 2007).

After the military regime ended 1985, the newly elected National Constituent Assembly was tasked with creating a new Constitution, a process that began in 1986 and ended with the ratification of the Constitution in 1988. The new government was deeply committed to democracy, shaping a constitutional drafting process that was unprecedented in its openness (Coelho and Oliveira, 1989). Aside from a great deal of public discussion and debate over the substance of the Constitution, the constituent process also allowed for popular amendments. Any amendment brought to the Assembly would be considered alongside the amendments proposed by the Assembly’s standing members with 30,000 citizen signatures, endorsed by three representative associations. This provision institutionalized the legitimacy of popular social movements after decades of oppression under the military regime. As a result, 122 popular amendments were submitted to the National Assembly containing more than 12 million signatures. Among these was one proposed by NURM, the Urban Reform Popular Amendment.

Protest for urban reform in Brazil. Source: sergipesocialista.blogspot.com

In its early stages, NURM focused on a narrow set of urban issues, mostly dealing with housing. Over time, the movement matured and developed ideas about the right to the city, the right to a social life, the concept of a “home beyond one’s house,” and the social role of public services, transportation, and infrastructure. They rejected the idea of the city as a place where private interests of the capitalist elite dominate, where space is segregated along lines of class and wealth and challenged the inviolable rights of private property owners (Sugranyes and Mathivet, 2010). With the amount of unused urban land increasing as a result of rampant land speculation paired with a dearth of affordable housing as well as extreme environmental degradation, urban reform advocates pressed for a greater recognition of the social function of property which questions the extent to which a property holder should be able to enjoy their property regardless of negative externalities (Maricato 2010). In short, NURM campaigned for the legal means to re-appropriate scarce, vacant land that was held off the market for speculative purposes and more generally, the right to the city for all citizens, and not just the privileged few.

Members of NURM captured these ideas in the Urban Reform Popular Amendment. After input from the National Urban Land Confederation, the Association of BNH Borrowers, and the Favela Dwellers Defense Movement and more than 40 local and regional associations, the Amendment was presented formally to the National Assembly in 1987 by the National Engineers’ Federation, the National Architects’ Federation and the Brazilian Architects’ Institute with more than 130,000 signatures (Bassul 2010). It contained 23 Articles that supported the following six principles:

• municipal government autonomy;
• the democratic management of cities;
• the social right to housing;
• the right to regularization of consolidated informal settlements;
• the social function of urban property; and
• combating property speculation in urban areas (Fernandes 2010, 58).

Final Parliamentary session of the 1988 Constitutional Congress that established the current Constitution of Brazil. Source: http://www.agenciabrasil.gov.br/galerias-de-fotos/2008/10/01/galeria_de_fotos.2008-10-01.7803856103

The National Constituency Assembly adopted portions of the Amendment in the new Constitution under the chapter on urban policy after much debate. While other sections of the Constitution assert the autonomy of municipal government, the chapter on urban policy has just two articles. Article 183 deals with squatters rights granting ownership of property up to 250 square meters if citizens have occupied the land and used it continuously for five years for residential purposes, provided they do not own any other property. Article 182 recognizes the social function of property and empowers municipal governments to impose sanctions on property owners that fail to utilize their land, holding it for speculative purposes. The Article also ties the social function of property to Master Plans. Municipalities with more than 20,000 people are required to create a Master Plan. Because master plans are meant to serve as a future vision of a given place, it is through the implementation of these plans that municipalities would fulfill the social function of urban property.

Tying the social function of property to the Master Plan was the compromise position of the landed elite in Brazil (which was still very powerful after the fall of the military and remains powerful today) and dramatically reshaped the struggle for urban reform. The Master Plan is a quintessentially local document, traditionally devised through a disinterested, rational, technical decision-making process. By placing the onus of defining the social function of property at the local level, NURM could no longer advocate for reform at the national level alone, but instead, had to do so in thousands of municipalities throughout the country (de Souza 2002).

As a result of the new Constitution, Brazil became a laboratory for experimentation in urban planning and management to tease out exactly how a Master Plan, traditionally a technical document, can be used to further progressive change and fulfill the social role of property. Participatory budgeting came out of this period, city conferences were held to develop urban policy with broad citizen engagement, and new land regularization programs were created and implemented at the municipal level (Fernandes 2007). However, despite the constitutional requirement, many municipalities did not complete a master plan, some for want of expertise, but mostly for lack of incentives. After the ratification of the Constitution, the national government chose not to regulate or enforce the chapter on urban policy. It would be an additional twelve years before the articles on urban policy were enforced by law.

National Forum on Urban Reform

Immediately following the ratification of the new Brazilian Constitution in 1988, the National Forum on Urban Reform (NFUR) was formed to pressure the government to regulate the Constitutional chapter on urban policy. NFUR was a network of networks, connecting with other movements in Brazil, dealing with a range of issues from water and sanitation to popular participation in local government, and operated within a larger framework of rights, such as the right to work, the right to sanitation services, to transportation and access to public facilities, to broaden their appeal and constituent support. They also used international platforms to encourage the government to agree to recognize specific rights and international standards. For example, representatives of NFUR participated in the UN Conference on Environment and Development in 1992 and the 1996 Habitat II conference in Istanbul at which the Brazilian government recognized the right to housing. As a result of these efforts and many others, the Brazilian National Assembly amended the Constitution to include the social right to housing in 2000, passed the City Statute in 2001, a law that regulates the constitutional chapter on urban reform, and established the Ministry of Cities, a body that deals with urban planning and reform at the national level, as well as the National Cities Conference and Council of Cities that were to shape Brazil’s National Urban Development Policy.

The City Statute

The City Statute is the crowning achievement of NFUR and the broader social movement toward urban reform. It regulates Articles 182 and 183 of the Federal Constitution of 1988 and espouses the following principle themes: democratic government, social justice in urban areas, and environmental sustainability (Maricato 2010). It is the legislation that enables governments and civil society to control “the processes of urban use, occupation, parceling and development of land” (Fernandes 2010, 55). Its scope is as broad as the urban issues it attempts to regulate. It includes provisions regulating “urban planning and plans; urban management; state, fiscal and legal regulation (particularly referring to landed property and real estate); tenure regularization of informal properties; and social participation in the elaboration of plans, budgets, complementary laws and urban management, [public-private partnerships], etc. (Maricato 2010, 5).” The overarching basis for the City Statute was to assert the social function of property—to prioritize social interests over individual ownership rights and end property speculation through which private interests benefitted most from public investments (Reali and Alli 2010).

The City Statute also regulates the relationship between different levels of government in Brazil. It requires that the local, city, state and national governments coordinate with one another when establishing urban policies. It reinforces the regulatory role of the municipality in urban property ownership and provides a series of tools and techniques that the municipality may use to develop their local policies through public consultation and participation (Reali and Alli 2010). Finally, the law enforces the obligation of cities with more than 20,000 people to adopt a Master Plan within a given timeframe as well as use democratic city management strategies. Penalties for not fulfilling this obligation include the withholding of federal resources for infrastructure, health, sanitation and education. Further, municipal authorities must ensure the planning process is transparent and participatory (Goldenfum et. al. 2008).

Participatory Master Plans

There was a great deal of social mobilization in Brazil to hold municipal authorities accountable to their obligation to create Master Plans through a transparent, participatory process after the enabling legislation was in place. Much like the participatory budgeting process that emerged in the early 1990s in Porto Alegre and other cities in Brazil, participatory master planning is a method to deepen democracy and give the public some control over the decision making in their city.

While public consultation in the planning process has been accepted at face value, the struggle for fully participatory Master Plans has been difficult as many municipal authorities and urban planners rejected the notion of participation in urban planning. Social movements applied pressure to fully democratize the planning process by staging public protests, publishing manifestos, and filing lawsuits against authorities who resisted democratic participation. Typically, the Master Plan was created by planning professionals, often consultants without any connection to the city itself. This notion persists even today. While master planning need not be the exclusive realm of professionals, there is a challenge in communicating the highly technical information in a way that is understandable to the local population. Unlike participatory budgeting, which requires a sound understanding of a relatively narrow set of concepts and a short time horizon, master planning requires an understanding of several fields including elements of civil engineering, urban design, transportation, and finance while keeping an eye toward long-term policy objectives.

In 2004, the Ministry of Cities (see below) and the National Cities Council launched a “National Awareness and Mobilization Campaign focused on the elaboration and implementation of participatory Master Plans with the aim of constructing inclusive, democratic and sustainable cities” (Ministry of Cities, Resolution No. 15 in Rodrigues and Barbosa 2010). By the end of 2010 more than 1,500 Master Plans were adopted throughout Brazil. However, despite these plans, there is no guarantee that the plans will be implemented in a fashion that will support the social function of property. Some plans have been abandoned outright. Others were subject to ad hoc modification after the plan was approved due to pressure from wealthy interests. As Rodrigues and Barbosa point out:

The difficulty of implementing the Master Plans often leads to frustration and disappointment among the leaders of the movements that have participated in the strenuous efforts to approve the proposals. Cases are recorded where no concrete results at all have been achieved, leading to serious questioning by the movements about the usefulness and effectiveness of the whole process (2010, 29).

Ministry of Cities

In 2003, the Brazilian Government created the Ministry of Cities, the coordinating entity of the new national-level urban development model that incorporates urban development, housing, sanitation and urban transport. One of the main reasons for establishing the Ministry of Cities was to establish a political/legal environment in which the nation, the states and municipalities could work with society at large to actualize the principles outlined in the City Statute.

More specifically, the Ministry:

• enforces the 2001 City Statute;
• coordinates the drafting of national policies on urban development;
• trains municipalities in techniques for drafting the constitutionally mandated Master Plans;
• provides training and technical support to municipalities on ways to decrease levels of inequality;
• prioritizes the needs of cities and states and allocate national resources; and
• serves as a coordinator and conflict mediator to states and cities.

The Ministry of Cities is dedicated to the democratization of urban development in Brazil. This was no different when drafting the National Policy for Urban Development. City and State Conferences were held in which participants discussed different ideas and proposals for the National Policy for Urban Development and elected delegates for the National Conference. At the first National Conference, held in 2003, the Council of Cities was elected. The Council subsequently approved proposals for a National Housing Policy, a National Sanitation Policy, a National Traffic Policy, a National Mobility and Public Transportation Policy, a National Campaign for Participative City Master Plans, a National Program to Support Sustainable Urban Land Regularization, and the National Policy for Capacitating Cities (Maricato 2006).

In and by itself the creation of the Ministry of Cities is a significant institutional achievement for promoting equitable and livable cities. Although there are some questions about the effectiveness of the Ministry, there is hope that the institutional arrangement will mature over time, and will ultimately prove helpful in meeting the challenges faced by many Brazilian cities. As the former Vice Minister at the Ministry of Cities notices, “Despite the fact that so far the achievements do not suffice to face up to the increasingly poor conditions of Brazilian cities, which are subject to the hegemonic forces of globalization, they do make up a participative and democratic environment that helps in the fight for a better future for the cities in Brazil” (Maricato 2006, p.7).

Conclusion

Despite its name, the urban reform movement in Brazil was not simply a movement for city people with city problems, but a movement that re-imagined what it means to be a Brazilian citizen and helped redefine the relationship between citizens and the State. However, because of their social, political, institutional, and economic density, it is in cities that poor governance, deficient service provision, and rights violations are manifold and pronounced. While the achievements of the urban reform movement are impressive in their scope, these gains were not realized over years, but decades, and still, their struggle continues. Brazil’s urban challenges remain extremely problematic, but because of the persistence of the urban reform movement as well as countless other initiatives, life has improved for many Brazilians and Brazil’s experience stands as a model for other nations on the path to democracy.

In Egypt, the Revolution remains unfinished; its potential unrealized. Many individuals and organizations both large and small have been mobilizing to demand reform, yet they have not been able to engage the state and its legislative and bureaucratic institutions to change concrete aspects of their lives. How can Egyptians build from their achievements of the revolution and mobilize around its latent promise? How can they transform their communities, improve public service provision, and demand accountable and responsive local governance toward creating a socially just, democratic society? Brazil’s experience offers some clues, but Egyptians will provide the answer.

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Rodrigues , Evaniza and Benedito Roberto Barbosa. 2010. “Popular movements and the City Statute.” The City Statute of Brazil: A Commentary. Cities Alliance, Nacional Secretariat for Urban Programmes, and Brazil Ministry of Cities. http://www.ifrc.org/docs/idrl/945EN.pdf. Last accessed on April 2, 2013.

The World Bank. 2012. World Development Indicators. Retrieved from http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.URB.TOTL.IN.ZS/countries/1W?display=graph