Centros históricos e desenvolvimento urbano: um estudo comparativo entre os programas Monumenta no Brasil e Polis em Portugal

Both the end of the twentieth century and the beginning of the twenty-first century have been characterized as a period of major political, economic, social and cultural transformations. Two of the major consequences of the political-economical crisis of the end of last century are the restructuring of capitalist production, and the consolidation of neoliberalism as a worldwide phenomenon. This new world political-economical scenario has influenced, in a dialectic way, the contemporary urban development. In that sense, "new" spatial processes and new paradigms in both urban management and urban planning have gained shape. In this context of urban transformations, the central areas of western cities, also known as historic centers, are being increasingly (re)valued. Since the Second World War, the historic centers urban areas which have great infrastructure and symbolic relevance had been undergoing a process of evasion of population and activities, undeniably linked to the neglect of government authorities. However, in recent decades, the question of historic centers rehabilitation has acquired a growing interest, academically and in political agendas. The object of this dissertation is to focus on how the government of each Brazil and Portugal has dealt with the issue of historic center rehabilitation through programs of urban rehabilitation

O papel do centro histórico na cidade: um estudo comparativo entre João Pessoa e Tours

In the contemporary scene, it is conspicuous that the patrimony and the culture have assumed privileged positions in urban policies, presenting themselves as instruments for transforming and shaping the aspect of cities. In the plot line of such glowing trend, the competitiveness among cities has drawn more attention, for at present such urban centers garner an image that makes them suitable for economic purposes, thus more likely to attract investments and tourists. In the spotlight of such stage, the cities become notable actors, directed by policies of urban rehabilitation. In such plot line, the historical centers gain more visibility and are converted into venues for staging the spectacle of everyday life. Overlapped in this process of producing images, the phenomenon of gentrification recrudesces. Thus, the discussion threaded about the patrimony gains strength in urban studies, keeping a close relationship with the ways of perceiving the cities nowadays. This work is based on the principle that the historical centers are engendered and fond by urban policies, working as transforming instruments of city perceptions and living. In that sense, the way how the historic center and the valuation assessed to old buildings are comprehended by the inhabitants is largely guided by urban policies that outline a sellable image of the city. In the light of such elaborations, an ethnographic research was made with focus on two different contexts, namely: the historic centers of João Pessoa (Brazil) and Tours (France). It was done in a comparative perspective, for it allows us to trace the main specificities of each situation in order to highlight the similarities and distinctions about the two regions mentioned above. The research aimed at apprehending how the pair redevelopment-abandonment engendered by the urban policies influence on the process of revaluation of historical centers by dwellers and to what extent there are convergences regarding such kinds of interventions, as an object of policies of urban and touristic development in Brazil and France. In order to make this work – besides the abundant bibliographic review carried out in libraries of several universities and institutions in Brazil and France – dwellers, merchants, teachers, representative people of public agencies and former residents of the historic centers of both cities were interviewed. In Tours, immigrants/Portuguese descendants were interviewed, point that greatly contributed to the understanding of the historic center before Vieux Tours renewal and restoration. Moreover a rich research on Archives and Public Agencies was done, as well as investigations on newspaper and articles on the Internet. Thus, in the context of the ethnography in historic centers, it was possible to notice that both realities reveal similarities in a comparative analytical framework

Centros históricos e desenvolvimento urbano: um estudo comparativo entre os programas Monumenta no Brasil e Polis em Portugal

Both the end of the twentieth century and the beginning of the twenty-first century have been characterized as a period of major political, economic, social and cultural transformations. Two of the major consequences of the political-economical crisis of the end of last century are the restructuring of capitalist production, and the consolidation of neoliberalism as a worldwide phenomenon. This new world political-economical scenario has influenced, in a dialectic way, the contemporary urban development. In that sense, "new" spatial processes and new paradigms in both urban management and urban planning have gained shape. In this context of urban transformations, the central areas of western cities, also known as historic centers, are being increasingly (re)valued. Since the Second World War, the historic centers urban areas which have great infrastructure and symbolic relevance had been undergoing a process of evasion of population and activities, undeniably linked to the neglect of government authorities. However, in recent decades, the question of historic centers rehabilitation has acquired a growing interest, academically and in political agendas. The object of this dissertation is to focus on how the government of each Brazil and Portugal has dealt with the issue of historic center rehabilitation through programs of urban rehabilitation