THE CENTERS AND THE RAILWAY STATIONS: an ...

THE CENTERS AND THE RAILWAY STATIONS: an analysis of the revitalization process of central areas – the case of Sala São Paulo Claudio Cesar de Paiva1 Carolina Maria Pozzi de Castro2 Kelly Cristina Magalhães Faria3 Elton Eustáquio Casagrande4

Abstract The issue that inspired the elaboration of this paper refers to the allocation that has been suggested to the properties of the Rede Ferroviária. This article provide a theoretical discuss around the revitalization process of the centers areas and the interests of the many economical agents involved in this process, emphasizing the action of the real estate capital which, associated to the local governments, seeks the transformation of the city into a kind of “growth machine”. Discusses the degradation process and the urban crisis in the central area of São Paulo, whose most evident manifestations are the impoverished residents, the informality of activities related to trade and services, the tenement housing, the street as a place for the homeless and ambulant traders etc. Moreover, it points some measures adopted by the municipal government towards upgrading the central area. In the final, the goal is to foment reflection over the restructuring process of the central area and the revitalization of the Julio Prestes Station, specially the Sala São Paulo, getting to understand the actions of cooptation and interests of the real estate capital, as well as questioning whether it that became the pride for the São Paulo society would not be, in fact, a gentrification instrument, that does not keep any sociability relation with the environment in which it is inserted. Keywords: revitalization, gentrification, railway stations, Sala São Paulo, real estate

Resumo: A problemática que serviu de inspiração para a elaboração desse trabalho referese à destinação que tem sido sugerida aos imóveis da Rede Ferroviária. O trabalho promove um debate teórico em torno do processo de revitalização das áreas centrais e os interesses dos diversos agentes econômicos envolvidos nesse processo, com especial ênfase na ação do capital imobiliário que, associado aos governos locais, procura transformar a cidade numa espécie de “máquina do crescimento”. Discute o processo de degradação e a crise urbana na área central de São Paulo, cujas manifestações mais evidentes são moradores empobrecidos, a informalidade de atividades relacionadas ao comércio e serviços, à moradia encortiçada, à rua como espaço de sem tetos e dos ambulantes, etc. E, por fim, promove-se uma reflexão sobre o processo de reestruturação da área central e vitalização da Estação Julio Prestes, em especial a Sala São Paulo, procurando compreender as ações de cooptação e interesses do capital imobiliário, bem como, questionando se aquilo que se tornou o orgulho para a sociedade paulistana não seria, na verdade, um instrumento de gentrificação, que não guarda qualquer relação de sociabilidade com o meio em que está inserido.

1

Professor do Departamento de Economia da UNESP – e-mail: [email protected] Professora do Departamento de Engenharia Civil da UFSCAR – e-mail: [email protected] 3 Professora do Departamento de Arquitetura e Urbanismo da UNESP – e-mail: [email protected] 4 Professor do Departamento de Economia da UNESP – e-mail: [email protected] 2

1. Introduction Since the 60s, the requalification policies of the urban centers became frequent on the urban agenda of many developed countries. However, it didn’t take long until the perverse effects of the big projects become evident, especially with the initiation of the gentrification process, as well said by Neil Smith. Nowadays, we observe an abundance of projects, both in developed and developing countries, seeking to recover and reposition the centrality of the urban areas, through the implementation of cultural facilities, entertainment, gastronomy, as well as the attraction of smart offices for the business global management. In this sense, the revitalization of the central areas begins to be seen as a strategy both for the process of real estate capital valorization and for the global competition between the different urban agglomerations. Indeed, the approach to recent changes on the world economy and the condition of the cities have been prominent on the academic discussions and on the strategic decisions of the urban reconstruction. The issue that inspired the elaboration of this paper refers to the allocation that has been suggested to the properties of the Rede Ferroviária, in the “cities of rails”, i.e., cities that were born and developed from the implementation of the railway stations. In fact, the construction of the railways implied much more than a break with the logistic strangulation for the flow of the coffee production, considering that it became responsible for organizing the land occupation and the structuring of the São Paulo urban net. In other words, the railway station that once symbolized the “City Gateway”, in the moment that the effervescent “Railway Age” constructed its iron roads over Brazilian lands and enabled the process of accumulation of the coffee production, had become an obstacle to the development process. Given this scenario, the paper confronts some questions that may shed light on the problems mentioned above, since this process may be replicated in other urban areas, particularly in the “cities of rails”. Among the numerous questions, it is important to return both to the simplest issues and the most delicate ones, such as: Why do reclassify? Revitalizing for whom? Is the single agenda proposed by the interests of the real estate capital appropriate to the goals of the city? Once the

requalification process is almost entirely financed by the public sector, why not ensure the character of “public good” to the facilities? To this end, the paper was structured in three parts, besides the introduction and the final considerations. In the first section, we provide a theoretical discuss around the revitalization process of the urban area and the interests of the many economical agents involved in this process, emphasizing the action of the real estate capital which, associated to the local governments, seeks the transformation of the city into a kind of “growth machine”. The second section discusses the degradation process and the urban crisis in the central area of São Paulo, whose most evident manifestations are the impoverished residents, the informality of activities related to trade and services, the tenement housing, the street as a place for the homeless and ambulant traders etc. Moreover, it points some measures adopted by the municipal government towards upgrading the central area. In the final section, the goal is to foment reflection over the restructuring process of the central area and the revitalization of the Julio Prestes Station, specially the Sala São Paulo, getting to understand the actions of cooptation and interests of the real estate capital, as well as questioning whether it that became the pride for the São Paulo society would not be, in fact, a gentrification instrument, that does not keep any sociability relation with the environment in which it is inserted.

2. Urban revitalization, sociability and capital interests The major projects of urban revitalization and renewal have been multiplied around the world in the last decades, especially those ones for recovering the functionality of the degraded central areas in big cities, the old industrial and railway areas abandoned in the process of productive restructuring and the decadent port areas. Some of these projects have become symbolic for achieving success in recovering the functions of the built environment in decadent areas and in the implementation of the marketing strategies for the promotion of an urban spectacle, such as Barcelona, Bilbao, among others. Although these projects do not constitute a new process, since they began to be implemented in several countries prior to the consolidation of the urbanization process in the Latin America, the recent boom of revitalization projects, from the 80s

and 90s, has a distinctive look for projects of precedent urban intervention, i.e., it is connected to a theoretical proposal that links the business entrepreneurship to the endogenous development strategies, a phenomenon that now is called “strategic planning for cities”. The basis of this theoretical approach is to transform the city into a product to be sold, i.e., turn the urban area into a space for entrepreneurs, providing the rentiers with a huge potential for the capital accumulation, which often occurs through symbiotic coalitions with the local elites and the government, transforming the city into a “growth machine”5, either through the development of strategic plans or through city marketing. Accordingly, some authors state that “the city Marketing, selling the city, changed into (...) one of the basic functions of the local governments and into one of the main fields of public-private negotiation.” (Borja & Forn (1996); Borja & Castells (1997); Güell (1997)).

Other authors are even more pragmatic, like Dematteis

(1998/99), who emphasizes the need for the city to remain always attractive for the capital: “si no es un nodo, no se es nada”. The emergency of a development strategy, based on the city as a growth machine (urban growth machine) or on the development of strategic plans, follows an attractive rationale by producing consensus on the urban intervention. First, experts in strategic planning of the cities plead the need to take some actions in order to generate competitive responses to the challenges of financial globalization and create a differential that can articulate the region to the global economy and, thereby, attracting a significant volume of private investments. So, like a “cake recipe”, it is recommended the establishment of a urban center of advanced services and management, organized around an international airport, a system of satellite telecommunications, luxury hotels, with appropriate security, English assistance services, local and regional governments capable of providing information and technology infrastructure in support of the international investor6. Well, if the Menu is pre-established for all cities, where is the announced differential? The second line of strategic action proposed by the mainstream of the urban planning emphasizes the “requalification” of urban spaces through the construction of cultural facilities as a way of selling a new image of the city. In this process, it is 5 6

Cf. Logan & Molotch (1999) Cf. Borja & Castells (1997:85)

possible to identify obscure interests trying to get legitimacy through market culturalism and through pseudo collectivism. This issue has its essence exposed by Beatriz Kara José (2001), when she states that: “Projects involving the creation of new cultural spaces or centers and the presence of art in public space, presented as democratic actions, have appeared related to interests of the real state capital which control and transform the urban space through a gentrification process.” (Kara José, 2001:847) In general, the reasons and objectives identified for the implementation of major projects of urban revitalization refer to the rescue of the public space character, the expansion of residential use ensuring the diversity of functions, the promotion of urban activities with social inclusion and the creation of democratic management mechanisms, aimed for collective interests. These objectives are almost consensual and, therefore, they do not generate major differences. However, not always are explicit the real interests and conflicts involved in the city production processes. Thus, the factors acclaimed with great intensity by the public and private agents to justify the process of revitalization of deteriorated urban areas and obtain democratic legitimacy tend to hide or mitigate the perversity of the socio-spatial segregation7. Not surprisingly, the processes of revitalization have undoubtedly acted as a euphemism for the gentrification process8. Accordingly, the fragmentation of territories and the socio-spatial segregation, which take place as a consequence of the contradiction between the social production of the space and its private ownership – based on the private ownership of the land -, generate conflicts and strategies that take place producing differences which, in turn, are expressed in the 7

For a recent view of the new characteristics of the gentrification process, see article written by Chris Hamnett (2000), under the name “Gentrification, Post industrialism, and Industrial and Occupational Restructuring in Global Cities”. 8 The word gentrification was used for the first time in 1964, by the sociologist Ruth Glass, referring to the process of segregation happening in London. According to the author: "One by one, many of the working-class quarters of London have been invaded by the middle-classes - upper and lower. Shabby, modest mews and cottages - two rooms up and two down - have been taken over, when their leases have expired, and have become elegant, expensive residences....Once this process of 'gentrification' starts in a district it goes on rapidly until all or most of the original working-class occupiers are displaced and the whole social character of the district is changed." (Glass, 1964:xviii) Further studies on the process of theoretical gentrification adopted two theoretical lines: on the side of production – the studies led by geographer Neil Smith focus on the relationships between capital flow and production of the urban space. On the side of consume – the studies were led by David Ley and the analysis focused on the characteristics and patterns of consumption in a post-industrial society.

territory as a strong distinction of areas that differ from each other according to the use as a result of the relationship between social morphology and spatial hierarchy which

segregates

groups

and

places9,

i.e.,

the

substrate

of

the

revitalization/gentrification process should be sought in the interests, in the forms and in the dynamics of capital accumulation10, because according to Neil Smith, “the urban wilderness produced by the cyclical movement of capital and its devalorization have, from the perspective of capital, become new urban frontiers of profitability. Gentrification is a frontier on which fortunes are made.” (Smith, 1999:356) Thus, the focus on endogenous development, from the formulation of revitalization strategic plans for deteriorated urban areas, shows deep contradictions between the mentioned objectives and the results achieved with the implementation of the projects. The nature of this contradiction is in the theoretical base that sustain the process, i.e., in the inability to match the interests of the major capital, represented by the modern rentiers, constituted from the merger of the real state capital with the financial capital, and the democratic occupation of the public space as a way of increasing the sociability.11 In this sense, Greene (2005) is symptomatic to say that (2005): “los millones de dólares invertidos y el esfuerzo de años y de personas por renovar zonas deterioradas y em desuso se traducen aparentemente solo em lugares diseñados por y para las elites, en espacios plásticos y vacíos, subutilizados y ventajosos solo para ilustrar panfletos turísticos; fracasados, en definitiva, en su intento de recrear – de manera controlada y calculada – el caos, vértigo y heterogeneidad que poseen los ejes urbanos tradicionales.” (Greene, 2005: 82) This deliberate process of gentrification and fragmentation of the intra-urban space, practiced through policies of urban revitalization, in acquiescence of public authorities, has exacerbated even more the tension between the included and the excluded ones, as well as promoted the process of polarization of the social and spatial strucure of the big cities. These perverse aspects are due to an apanage of the contemporary capitalism, which creates a differentiated and exclusionary space

9

According to the statements of Ana Fani Alessandri Carlos and Edna Ramos de Castro (2001) Cf. Paiva & Fernandes (2003) 11 Ver Paiva & Fernandes (2003) 10

within the heterogeneity of the city, where the elite consumerism and the idea of modernity and social growth are the essential features. Indeed, “la mundialización desarrolla en la ciudad sus lógicas de separación”12 that if, on one hand, has supported the emergence of new centralities integrated to the world commercial and financial flows, on the other hand, has contributed to the weakening of social cohesion13. This last point is essential for the debate on the sustainability of the city, for not valorizing the sociability spaces and the imposition of exclusion spaces by private groups (often in partnership with public authorities), strengthens the contradictions between the social production of the space and the private appropriation, emphasizing the weakening of social cohesion and, thus, giving more visibility to the tensions, to the barbarism and to the insecurity in the fragmented urban space. The importance of this fact is recognized even by one of the supporters of strategic planning, Jordi Borja, when he states that: “la ciudad fragmentada es una ciudad fisicamente segregada, socialmente injusta, económicamente despilfarradora, culturalmente miserable y politicamente ingobernable”. (BORJA, 2000:27) In this context, it is important that the city is seen, in its essence, as a public space and, therefore, the right to the city is a basic premise for the citizenship, for the sociability and for democracy itself. Therefore, projects of urban revitalization should be conditioned by these values and principles, in a way that segregating or limiting the accessibility of certain urban areas is perpetuating a social geography characterized by the duality of great prosperity areas and great poverty areas, i.e., creating a socially unfair city and as illegal as those areas that are outside the legal and urban rules14.

3. The crisis of centrality: some elements about the central area in São Paulo The contemporary urban crisis especially focused in central areas of Brazilian cities reinforce the representation of this area as a locus of poor residents

12

Cf. Marie-France Prévôt Schapira in the article: Segregación, fragmentación, secesión. Hacia una nueva geografía social en la aglomeración de Buenos Aires (2000). 13 Cf. Paiva & Fernandes (2003) 14 Cf. Paiva & Fernandes (2003)

and informal activities related to trade and services, tenement housing, the street as a place for homeless and ambulant traders. There are many academic studies and urban planning focused on the urban chaos existing under these conditions. These urban projects toward the solutions of the problems in the central area related to insecurity, pollution and other diseconomies undertaking local development and quality of life are all over the newspapers headlines. Nevertheless, interventions toward the urban regeneration of the central areas will be suggested and acclaimed as a way of business and life revitalization in central areas. The hegemonic political alliances are structured in order to support the public investments related to real estate and land market which, in turn, see the central area as an alternative to make high property revenues and high construction profits. But, in order to meet this expectation, they need to reach the urban regulation such as urban zoning law and tax incentives law, and reach the works of infrastructure that may ensure profit rising in such a way that compensates the displacement of the companies in the areas under intense real estate dynamic of the new centralities and urban renewals, such as the polarization practiced by the southwestern vector of São Paulo city. The central area of São Paulo has not been characterized by the lack of vitality15. However, it has suffered the effects of the emptying process caused by the exodus of some business from the tertiary sector, called modern and connected to the corporations that seek new centralities and renewal areas with intelligent office buildings, by the high-income residents seeking new urbanizations focused on individual transportation and by the attraction caused by the “shopping centers” or “malls”, in the southwest quadrant of the city. Nakano, Campos e Rolnik (2004,) state that the central area has been the target

of public power interventions and policies for almost 40 years, adopting

guidelines with serious consequences on the patterns of the occupation of the central region, the expanded downtown area and the southwest quadrant16. 15

According to KOWARIK 2007, p.173 (apud Kohara, 2009 p. 66): “In this sense, we mention the existence of 530 thousand inhabitants in central areas, 723 thousand formal jobs, 3.8 million of pedestrians every day, or two million passengers daily passing through the districts of Sé and República through 294 of the 1.2 thousand bus lines existing in the city, the 17 subway stations and other three major rail traffic spread throughout their districts with oldest occupations”. The central districts considered were Barra Funda, Bela Vista, Belém, Bom Retiro, Brás, Consolação, Cambuci, Liberdade, Mooca, Pari, Republica, Santa Cecília and Sé and the demographic data are from Censo FIBGE 2000. 16 In the end of the 19th Century, the urbanization in the southwest region started in the neighborhoods of Campos Elíseos, then Higienópolis. With the expansion of the historic center and following the national major

Still, according to the authors: “Foram essas políticas que determinaram o estabelecimento de uma macro-estrutura viária em escala urbana, permitindo o surgimento de um centro enormemente expandido para abrigar a verticalização e as funções centrais – e tratando o núcleo histórico como mero nó de articulação e passagem nesse sistema de circulação, prejudicado ainda por intervenções agressivas e fragmentadas de viadutos, elevados e trincheiras. A criação da macro-acessibilidade por automóvel na escala urbana- com tratamento privilegiado para o setor sudoeste, amparando o deslocamento dos usos centrais de prestígio nessa direção por meio de ambiciosas obras de avenidas, túneis e complexos viários- foi acompanhada por políticas que mantiveram a área central como foco das redes de transporte coletivo, com linhas de metrô, terminais e corredores de ônibus, consagrando o caráter crescentemente popular da região.” (p.155)

In addition to these interventions on the road system, some streets have been closed for car circulation and there has been the pedestrianization of the center, creating favorable conditions for the development of the ambulant trade (Pamplona, 2006)17. The conflicts between the right to the public space and the right to the work have caused problems whose solutions under the plans of rehabilitation and regulation of the trade activities on the streets could not find the necessary scale and the attempts to banish the ambulant traders from the streets, retaken by the current municipal management, have not been successful. The visibility given to the problem, magnified in the imagination of the people with higher income due to the association of these ambulant traders to crime, drugs, prostitution, begging and dirt,

metropolis scale polarization, it followed during the 60s to the neighborhoods of Paulista Avenue reaching, in the 70s, the neighborhoods of Faria Lima Avenue and, as centrality of the Latin America global metropolis, in the 90s it has spread to the area of Luis Carlos Berrini Avenue and Marginal Pinheiros, forming areas of intense exploration for the property market, such as Morumbi, Vila Olímpia and Itaim-Bibi. 17 See Pamplona, J. B. A Atividade informal do comércio de rua e a região central de São Paulo. In Empresa Municipal de Urbanização - EMURB. Caminhos para o centro: estratégias para ao desenvolvimento da região central de São Paulo. São Paulo, 2004, p. 307-337. According to the author, the City Hall estimates 5 to 8 thousand ambulant traders in the central area. Many times, the ambulant trade enables high incomes for the group involved with smuggling, piracy, sale of stolen goods, featuring illegal and illicit activities and, therefore, that justifies the actions taken by the public power in order to their removal from the streets. However, for other groups of ambulant traders, the actions to be taken should be labor market inclusion, so that they can stop this activity or they can be regularized, in such a way that the activities can be performed in an acceptable manner.

has presented a negative effect and find in the central area some niche known as “crackland”, around Júlio Prestes Station18. The problems of urban chaos in the neighborhoods of Luz and Santa Efigênia, quite affected by the railroad since last century, were exacerbated in the 70s by the installation of the Bus Station at Júlio Prestes square with serious consequences on the urban structure, which did not tolerate the impact of such road transport equipment in the proportion of the new station. As Meyer examines (1999): “O elevado número de linhas terminais que acessavam a rodoviária acabou por degradar de forma irreversível as ruas adjacentes. A transferência das atividades da Estação Rodoviária para o Terminal Tietê, em 1982, não logrou uma reversão do quadro de decadência instalado na região. A inauguração da primeira linha do metrô, em 1974, com as estações Luz e Tiradentes localizadas na região, também não chegou a alterar o processo geral de declínio. O índice de imóveis “cortiçados” aumentou e a nociva atividade do tráfico de drogas se instalou em algumas ruas do bairro. Na verdade, o processo de “isolamento” e decadência urbana já havia atingido níveis elevados, dada a absoluta prioridade oferecida à macroacessibilidade metropolitana, principalmente através da avenida Tiradentes, em detrimento da microacessibilidade local. O eixo norte–sul atingiu no início dos anos 90 as características de via expressa.” (p.27)

Just like Meyer emphasized the changing process of the Pólo Luz, many other authors saw the deterioration process of the central area, consisting of the central crown formed by the districts of Sé and República and its neighborhoods including Santa Efigênia, Luz, Bom Retiro and Santa Cecília, as a consequence of political strategies of global nature. The many interventions on the road system, such as the construction of the emblematic Tiradentes Avenue and Costa e Silva high passage, resulted in a fragmented space. At the time of the pioneer intervention for the preservation of the railroad station and the implementation of the cultural complex, the surrounding neighborhoods exposed the isolation of the area caused by the north-south road and by the expressway connecting east-west, also including the railroad.

18

Ver Comin, A. A. Introdução. Diagnósticos, oportunidades e diretrizes de ação. In Empresa Municipal de Urbanização - EMURB. Caminhos para o centro: estratégias de desenvolvimento para a região central de São Paulo. São Paulo, 2004.

In São Paulo, the downtown area was discarded by the former residents with high income. However, it arouses the interest of the nearest neighborhoods located east and north and it should represent the possibility of building a democratic society, where it is the place for everybody, restoring its functionality, given by the coexistent subspaces specialized in trading and services that show the plentiful supply of jobs, public spaces and housing. According to Rivière d’Arc (2006, p. 279) there are two views on the changes of the central area and they would differentiate the projects. A first group believes that the projects of rehabilitation of the central area tends to place an ongoing process of gentrification, while a second group points to the possibility of a wide range of access to rehabilitated housing, for which it’s necessary to help rebuilding the urban conditions. According to the second group, the downtown area should bear the diversity of incomes, networks, ways of life and demographic layers. The trajectory of the policies for the central area of São Paulo shows that these views little alternate. However, there is a variation focused on the rehabilitation of the central area in São Paulo and the admission of the importance of the diversity, when the city was administrated by Partido dos Trabalhadores, the Mayors Luiza Erundina (1989-1992) and Marta Suplicy (2001-2004). The interest of poor people in living in the central areas, due to the provision of infrastructure, leisure and, specially, due to the proximity to the workplace, is now considered by these administrations. In this sense, they intervened with the purpose of breaking the process of urban segregation descendant from the pattern of peripheral expansion. According to Kohara (2009), about half of the six hundred thousand of the tenement inhabitants and about ten thousand homeless people live in the central area of São Paulo, including the fact that thousands of informal workers have their activities in this area. The presence of these populations – organized in a movement or not – has always been a reason for conflicts. In the 90s, actions for downtown housing joined the specific fights of the tenement inhabitants and, with the argument of living with dignity in the downtown area, they resisted to the actions of eviction, as well as they organized their demands, which were headed to the housing programs under the responsibility of the City Hall. The public attention to these claims has always depended on the political will of the municipal management to face this issue. The right to the Center included the implementation of programs for the recovery of the tenement housings, ensuring

conditions of habitability and the provision of housing in buildings reformed for rental, leasing or ownership of those ones living there. The fact of poor residents living in the central area has not been faced as a synonym of degradation of the center, and the social housing policy with programs for building rehabilitation tried to break the relationship of socio-spatial segregation of the precarious collective rental housing in the central area, and these programs had the commitment to prevent this segregation to perpetuate and the commitment to break the paradigm that poor people should live in the suburbs19. The limits of such interventions were given regarding the extension of the problem and the capacity of the municipal administration to find solutions for the local. The achievement of rehabilitation policies covering the diversity in the central areas was not independent from financing lines defined by the federal government. Indeed, the rehabilitation policies should be planned in order to reach a mass scale, aimed at the market expansion for middle and middle-low income families and ensuring subsidies for social housing20. Only after the recent changes on the destination of resources from FNHIS and on the actions of the federal government regarding the residential property financing, allocating resources of the voluntary savings of the SBPE (Brazilian Savings and Loans System) and the FGTS (Unemployment Guarantee Fund) in order to expand the housing market, the municipalities will be able to develop action plans for the central area rehabilitation. Thus, they can count on financing for the low-

19

Under the managent of Luiza Erundina, the Municipal Law nº10.928 of 10.08.1991 was sanctioned, known as Lei Moura, which set minimum habitability standards for the tenement housing. Besides, it has started the municipal program for supporting the downtown tenement residents, with new housing to be built where they lived. Between 2001 and 2004, this program was taken up and the projects once abandoned during the management of Pitta and Maluf were completed. During the management of Marta Suplicy some social rental strategies were adopted, such as “bolsa-aluguel”, which presented the tenement residents some alternatives, like rehabilitated buildings located downtown. For the groups with greater social instability, like the homeless people, they adopted the inclusion of these people in programs of social assistance and temporary housing in popular hotels downtown. For further information on this social housing policy for the central area, see Caricari, A. M.; Kohara, L. (org). Cortiços em São Paulo: soluções viáveis para habitação social no centro da cidade e legislação de proteção a moradia. São Paulo: Mídia Alternativa, 2006. For further information on the tenement housing at the beginning of the Century and hygienists policies, see BONDUKI, Nabil. G. Origens da habitação social no Brasil. São Paulo: Estação Liberdade/FAPESP, 1998. RIBEIRO, Luís C. de Q. Dos cortiços aos condomínios fechados: as formas de produção da moradia na cidade do Rio de Janeiro. Rio de Janeiro: Civilização Brasileira, IPPUR/UFRJ, FASE, 1997. 20 The financing sources for the rehabilitation were from the municipal budget at Luiza Erundina command and the resources for social housing were from FUNAPS. At Marta Suplicy command the os recursos próprios eram contrapartida do financiamento firmado com o Banco Interamericano de Desenvolvimento a ser aplicado no programa Ação Centro, sob a coordenação da Empresa Municipal de Habitação.

income classes and promote the resumption of the economical functionality mixed to social housing, using the existing rehabilitated and restored buildings21. The conditions for the interventions are favorable from the financing to the supply of buildings for recycling - which is very ample and may become accessible to the middle class – to the growing of neighborhoods such as Bom Retiro, the area of Luz itself, both sides of Tiradentes Avenue, Campos Elíseos and near the Júlio Prestes Station22. The current municipal management starts a significant action on the process of transforming the downtown area and the Nova Luz, yet the middle class interest in going back to the central area is not clear. The municipal management sets up partnerships in the projects and sets goals and targets that are far from the interests of the occupants involved in economical informality and from the formal economic activities of popular nature, which are typical in the central areas of São Paulo and discontinues the proposal for rehabilitation with the social diversity that the Municipal management (2001-2004) proposed on the Programa Morar no Centro (Living Downtown Program)23. The railway stations are in the core of this complex issue, in which the interventions and public policies for the urban crisis and the resumption of the functionality of the central areas will be based on the models tested in some American and European big cities, which show an appeal to the property valuation using intensive capital to the detriment of local communities interests in case of not

21

Maricato (2001, p. 140 e 141) finds: “a) The revitalization of old urban centers demands the protection of the small business as a strategy for the maintenance of jobs and also the characteristics of the built heritage...b) It is highly interesting to promote residential use in the central areas. Besides the mentioned aspects of overcoming the idleness and abandonment, during the 24 hours of the day, the experiences prove that the best leverages for the recovery of the central areas are the housing programs. They allow a chain reaction that incorporates financing and market. Moreover, an efficient housing program in the downtown area may redirect the flow of residential resettlement that, in the Brazilian cities, goes toward the environmentally sensitive areas.” 22 About 40.000 homes are empty in the central area of São Paulo (Censo FIBGE, 2000). 23 For further information, see the Programa Morar no Centro. PMSP, 2004 which includes the Action Plan aimed at the Perímetro de Reabilitação Integrada do Habitat para o Bairro da Luz -PRIH-LUZ (Integrated Rehabilitation Perimeter for Luz neighborhood) and numerous interventions on rehabilitation of the buildings located in the central area of São Paulo with funding from the Programa de Arrendamento Residencial da CAIXA (Federal Savings and Loans Bank) and the Fundo Municipal de Habitação (Municipal Funds for Housing). The construction works on the buildings at the central area of São Paulo with resources from PAR began in 1999. After 2005, with the resources from FNHIS, the CEF (Federal Savings and Loans Bank) provides financing with subsidies for the population with income up to 3 living wages, which includes almost all the tenement residents. We may not forget that the Companhia de Desenvolvimento Habitacional do Estado de São Paulo- CDHU (Housing Development Company), in 1998, established the Programa de Atuação em CortiçoPAC, set in 2001, in partnership with the Inter-American Development Bank for financing the interventions in nine central districts with higher concentration of tenement housing.

adopting the policies which avoid the gentrification process – previously discussed in this article24.

4. The railway stations: crisis, requalification and the induction to the gentrification process The role that the railways play in the economy and urban structuring in the interior of São Paulo started in the mid-nineteenth Century. With the inauguration of the São Paulo Railway, from Santos to Jundiaí, the extension to Campinas was necessary, as it constituted an agricultural border in the urban net of the interior. From 1867 to 1930, the main railroads in the State of São Paulo are: Sorocabana (2.074 km), Mogiana (1.954 km), Noroeste do Brasil (1.539 km), Cia Paulista (1.534 km), E. F. Araraquara (379 km) and the São Paulo Railway (246 km). The urban net in the State of São Paulo now has a rich variety of cities that once were part of the development and rail progress scenario, which had its period of rising and fall between 1870 and 1940. The main component of the railway inheritance in São Paulo is the old FEPASA, currently known as “Malha Paulista”. It is of great importance because of its large extension in the States of São Paulo and Minas Gerais. FEPASA came from the merger of five railway companies that worked until the mid-1960. Among these companies, importance is given to those ones designed and expanded only in order to enter the territory of São Paulo and reach the coffee plantations. Thus, it has incorporated all the assets of the Companhia Paulista, which was one of the first companies to enter the northeast and the central region of the State, and reached important cities such as: Campinas, Rio Claro and São Carlos. Originally, this Company was intended to connect the part of São Paulo Railway that reached Jundiaí, until the city of Campinas. Equally important, it purchased the Estrada de Ferro Sorocabana, which connected São Paulo to São João do Ipanema, responsible for a great territory extension in the southwestern region of the State. Also, the Estrada de Ferro Araraquara, connecting Araraquara to Taquaritinga, 24

About the American cities, see Wyatt, D. The growth machine goes to the inner city. In: Planners network. New York: n. 137,sept./oct.1999. Apud Maricato, E.. Brasil, Cidades: alternativas para a crise urbana. Petrópolis: Ed. Vozes, 2001, p. 141.

reached São José do Rio Preto in 1912. Besides these companies, the Companhia Estrada Ferro Mogiana, which had its center line starting in Campinas toward the interior, extended up to Rio Grande, reaching the southwestern region of Minas Gerais, passing through important cities, such as Ribeirão Preto. And, from this point, the fifth Company, Estrada de Ferro São Paulo - Minas, which headed to Minas Gerais, going through Serrinha, Serra Azul until São Sebastião do Paraíso. In this context, it is not surprising that most part of the assets of Brazilian railway inheritance is concentrated in the State of São Paulo and, along with the coffee expansion process, they are the protagonists of São Paulo urban net development25. According to the Comissão de Inventariança of the former Rede Ferroviária Federal S.A, the vast collection of buildings along the railway is composed of lands where are located 150 warehouses and 2,500 homes that mostly form the villages, and the unremarkable railway complex in the interior of the State. With the demographic, social and economic changes in the Brazilian cities over the fast industrialization and urbanization process, the constructive and spatial structures of the railway stations and their complex, occurring between the end of the 19th Century and the first decades of the following Century, have also changed, losing their functionality in the urban structure. The transshipment central stations of passengers and cargo have been given prominence in the local and preservation policies because of the architectural and urban components in the urban areas, totaling an inventory of 280 buildings in the State of São Paulo.

4.1. Sala São Paulo: civilization in the midst of barbarism? One of the most emblematic urban projects for the regeneration of the Brazilian cities central areas occurred by transforming one of the spaces of São Paulo railway in cultural facilities. These facilities are a paradigm for interventions in old railway stations located in urban central areas, reflecting itself as a postcard for the city of São Paulo.

25

Part of the valuable rail inheritance interesting for São Paulo municipalities belonged to FEPASA, and it became the object of interventions initiated by the temporary measure nº 353 from January 22, 2007 issued by the Federal Government, sanctioned by Law 11.483 from May 31, 2007, dividing them into operational and nonoperational. The non-operational were transferred to the Secretaria do Patrimônio da União (SPU), becoming part of the Union inheritance.

This public property had its construction finished in 1938, belonging to Estrada de Ferro Sorocabana26, became part of FEPASA in the 70s, and was transferred to CPTM in 1995, what enabled its use by the Government of São Paulo State in 1999. Notorius for the neoclassical magnitude in the end of the Old Republic, this property met the requirements to host the most important cultural Project in São Paulo city when it was converted into a modern concert room and into a head office for the Symphonic Orchestra of São Paulo State (OSESP), the famous “Sala São Paulo”.

Sala São Paulo

With the transference of the Julio Prestes Station to the CPTM and with the political decision of adapting part of the building to the concert room, the Governor Mario Covas convoked the “Viva o Centro” Association which, according to Alcino Izzo Júnior27, “becomes part of the venture, taking the responsibility for the projects of revival and implementation of the symphonic room, as well as accomplishing 26

The Estrada de Ferro Sorocabana connected São Paulo to São João do Ipanema, and it was responsible for a great territorial expansion in the southwestern region of São Paulo State. 27 Alcino Izzo Jr., “De estação de trem a sala sinfônica”. In: Pólo Luz – Sala São Paulo, cultura e urbanismo, São Paulo, Viva o Centro, 2000.p.56.

studies on the reurbanization of the Luz neighborhood, in view of its dynamism as a metropolitan cultural center”.

Julio Prestes Station

Fonte : Pólo Luz. Sala São Paulo, cultura e urbanismo

The building rehabilitation and adaptation project for its new use was possible due to investments obtained by setting up a public-private partnership and it represented a strategic action for the development of the Pólo Luz Cultural, linked to the Monumenta Program, a program for the renewal of the central areas and the conservation of the historical heritage in Brazilian cities, using resources from the Inter-American Development Bank-IDB.

Julio Prestes Station (Today)

Besides, during Pitta’s management, the City Hall enabled a contract with the IDB for financing interventions in the central area, but its effective release was initiated only in the end of Marta Suplicy’s management. The total amount of this contract corresponded to U$ 100 million and it demanded the compensation of U$ 68 million from the city. In order to meet the requirements for using the financial resources from the IDB, the analyzed projects fit in the logic of the extended recovery of the investment, and therefore that leads to the provision of more taxes payment by the owners of the properties located in the area covered by the intervention. Questionless, this synergic effect existing in the proceedings of the international financing agency, where major public investments are expected, should result in real estate valorization, leading to a series of difficulties in maintaining the social projects, conditioning the private-public relationship to an exclusionary partnership. Thus, setting a private-public partnership in the process of viability of the Sala São Paulo, did not escape this general rule for the urban revitalization projects. For this purpose, on one side, the government operated in order to start the process of renewal and implementation of the cultural center, taking the risks of high investments required for fulfilling this complex work. On the other side, the Viva o Centro Association acted as a protagonist and partner, responding for the

coordination of the works, selection and development of the Project for the Room. Before the government, its role in uniting privates and mediating the public and private interests would be fully appropriate, since its mission is assuring the compliance of the interests of the associated in the partnership on the downtown area revitalization28. Moreover, small investments came from private companies, which received significant advantages. Wisnick e al. (2001) state that:

“Apesar da propalada “parceria”, dos mais de R$ 50 milhões investidos na Sala,menos de 2 milhões (4%) vieram da iniciativa privada e, ainda por cima, por meio das leis de incentivo que permitem abatimento no Imposto de Renda. Entretanto, essas empresas ganharam o direito de utilizar indiscriminadamente a “imagem” da Sala e associar sua marca à “alta cultura”, como fizeram especialmente o BankBoston, com um encarte que o associa aos investimentos culturais no Centro, e a Telefônica –numa estratégia de marketing cultural e valorização simbólica de sua marcas.” (p. 11)

Sala São Paulo is an intervention which began as an apparent civilizing action in the midst of barbarism (WISNIK et. al., 2001) and is currently in the midst of one of the most important spatial disputes fought in the central area in order to ensure the interests of the coalitions formed with the purpose of achieving the Project of renewal and reoccupation of the territory surrounding Luz neighborhood and is starred, on one side, by the current municipal management in partnership with entrepreneurs of the real estate sector and, on the other side, by the owners of small

28

“Financiamento do BID em questão”, por Fábio de Castro. URBS Viva o Centro, nº 39, out. /nov. 2005. “The Viva o Centro Association was established in 1991 with the mission of articulating the participation of the private initiative and of the civil society organized on the efforts for recovering the central area of São Paulo through its own actions and through partnerships with the government at all levels. In 1993, the executive council, as proposed by Viva o Centro, established the ProCentro in order to coordinate and harmonize, inside the city, the actions for the recovery of the Downtown area. Since then, the Viva o Centro participates on this organism, facilitating the mediation among its members, the community of the central area and the government. Out of ProCentro, the negotiations began for the loan of U$ 100 million from the IDB in order to accomplish the actions for the recovery of the Downtown area....Today, more than 4000 thousand companies, condominiums and residents participate in more than 40 groups of Local Actions, that act as interlocutors of each street and each square in the central area of São Paulo, with the Viva o Centro Association and the government.” Moreover, in Wisnik et al. (2001, p. 11), we find references to the profile of the Viva o Centro members, “The list of the main supporters of the Viva o Centro Association: BankBoston, Bovespa, Bolsa de Mercadorias e Futuros, Nossa Caixa Nosso Banco, Extra-Mappin, Faculdade Belas Artes, Banco Itaú S.A., Banespa, Shopping Light, Eletropaulo, Banco da Cidade, Unibanco and Grupo Sílvio Santos. Out of the seventeen members of the Association leadership, eight members represent bankers and one is from BM&F, i.e., a majority linked to the financial system; where the two presidents are executives of BankBoston.”

business and low-income residents, for whom the Nova Luz project threatens their stay29. Ten years after opening the Room, during the managements of Mayors Serra (2005-2006) and Kassab (2007-2008, 2009), it is revived the proposal of revitalization associated to the ideas of urban renewal on the surrounding area and it is emphasized the revaluation and the resumption of real estate business on Luz neighborhood, as one of the vectors for the economic development of the old central area. However, if the neighborhoods around the railway introduce discordant elements to the project, we must analyze how the new renovation plan and its agents will impact the traditional urban structure, to make possible the gains obtained by the public investments and by the tax waiver through urban incentives and concessions which, in turn, ensure attractiveness to private investments, creating a virtuous circle to the city’s business30. By adopting interventions according to these urban strategies, it should be considered the risk of expelling the formers occupants, as evidenced in other cities in a widely discussed international framework of references, such as Bilbao, Barcelona, Boston, Baltimore, among others, and the emblematic intervention in Brasil in the revitalization of the Pelourinho in Salvador. Thus, in order to preserve the interests of the real state companies or other dynamic segments of the economy, such as the financial sector, we observe the initiation of enforcement and repressive actions with the use of bureaucratic and police apparatus, appealing to the urban planning and instruments in order to establish the formal land ownership occupation of the space to the detriment of the traditional activities and the small business downtown. Many times, the hygienist interventions from the beginning of the 20th Century return through the actions of municipality in the central areas of the Brazilian cities on the last decades.

29

Kohara, L. T. Relação entre as condições da moradia e o desempenho escolar: estudo com crianças residentes em cortiços. São Paulo, Faculdade de Arquitetura e Urbanismo/USP. 2009. (Tese de Doutorado). According to the author, the existence of the tenement housing around Luz neighborhood was identified long time ago by Richard M. Morse (1954), Eva Alterman Blay (1985) and Nabil Bonduki (1998), who reported the conditions of 65 tenement housings located near the Sorocabana Station. These studies were based on municipal research in 1893, published in 1894. They observed that these houses were located in properties built in the center of the block, or, like the cottage, the tenement-hotel, the two-story house converted into tenement housing and back rooms in the backyards.The authors studied the Report of the Comissão de Exame e Inspeção das Habitações Operárias e Cortiços no Distrito de Sta. Efigênia, p 47 e 48. Relatório 1893. São Paulo, Espínola, 1894. (p.52) 30 For the development of Nova Luz, the attractions include 50% reduction on IPTU (Property Tax) and ITBI, plus 60% discount on the ISS tax on construction services. The law nº 14.917 of May 7, 2009, on the urban concession in the city of São Paulo, incident on the central area.

Another expected dynamic on the renewal of Luz neighborhood is the spontaneous gentrification, since overcoming the traditional merchants and residents resistance to the project and, effecting the actions without the appropriate financing to these groups, like other international experiences, the owners start to dispose (sell or expropriate) the properties to the higher-income occupants and companies to the detriment of the rental contracts31. We can observe that the actions that determine the recovery begin with the actions of the government to eliminate the possible presence of anomalous social elements, since there is no place for them in the project32.

5. Conclusions Observing the relation between the cultural facilities implemented at the Júlio Prestes Station and its neighborhood, we find a contrast and, at the same time, its distancing compared to the implantation of a participative urban project. However, the synergistic effects of the public investments by the gentrification agents are delayed and the expected private investment does not materialize the renewal in the desired scale. On one side, the release of urban land for the real estate investments depends on municipal public resources for expropriating the lands at the perimeter of public interest (Nova Luz) and, on the other side, the State increasingly turns to the implementation of cultural facilities associated to the urban and business marketing, as occurred with the implantation of the Sala São Paulo, extending the Complexo Cultural da Luz (Luz Cultural Center)33. Thus, with the speech of urban intervention for recovering the qualities and functions that were being lost, the downtown area begins to be reapropriated as a place of positive visibility, from a logic of entrepreneurship, in which the city is

31

About the gentrification agents, see Smith, N. A gentrificação generalizada: de anomalia local à “regeneração” como estratégia urbana global. In Bidou-Zachareiasen, C. De volta à cidade. São Paulo: Annablume, 2006. p. 59-88. 32 In São Paulo, the downtown area, particularly the Campos Eliseos and Luz neighborhoods, around Julio Prestes, are object of the “Operação Saturação” (Saturation Operation), with repressive agencies for the groups of drug addicted, prostitution and great amount of bars and popular guesthouses shutdowns, with the elimination of the housing alternatives for those ones who don’t have fixed income. 33 The government is a partner of Bank Boston, which is recognized as a cultural sponsor of the heart of São Paulo, participating on the restorations that resulted in the São Paulo Room and in the Banco do Brasil Cultural Center.

supposed to be visually seen and consumed. If the intervention occurred with private resources, according to the laws of land use and occupation and the Municipal Master Plan, there would be nothing to discuss about. However, the international and also Brazilian experience, show that these revitalization processes are primarily structured with public resources, so the public interest should be assured. However, as Neil Smith states “the demand for revitalized spaces is ensured by diversified economical and demographic groups”, ensuring the financial and real estate capital the possibility of profiting with the revitalization, i.e., the interests are different.

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