Actors in Residential Strategies: Constraints in the Renewal of the City of Fortaleza

Fernando B. Alves
FEUP- alves@fe.up.pt

Isabel Breda-Vázquez
FEUP

Beatriz Rufino
LabHab FAUUSP – biarufino@gmail.com

Artigo enviado para a revista URBANISTICA PVS – Developing Countries, 2007.

Residential strategies constitute an important issue in urban renewal policies. The implementation of residential strategies is, in many cases, linked to the adoption of new intervention approaches, which are based on the conception of incentive instruments and on the articulation of a group of multi-sectorial interventions. This paper discusses the strategies and operational mechanisms used within the ambit of reinforcement policies of habitation in central areas, with particular focus on the city of Fortaleza in Brazil. As is the case of the majority of the central areas in large Brazilian cities, the central area of Fortaleza is characterized as a centrality which is in decline and which concentrates a large volume of economic activities. This area exerts a powerful attraction on the town’s population. However, it is, none the less, excluded from private investment and it presents us with a significant decline in terms of population. The proposal under analysis is based on the utilization of federal public financing as well as on the articulation of efforts between various local and public actors. The strategy under discussion for the central area of Fortaleza was limited, in relation to its conception and particularly in relation to the implementation operational mechanisms. To a large extent this explains the lack of concreteness of this very strategy. We can thus conclude that the implementation of new approaches is highly conditioned by the financial, institutional context in addition to the physical conditions of the area in discussion.