Urban law and right to the city: Urban struggles in the inner city of São Paulo

Brazil is known for the advances achieved in the field of urban legislation, mainly in reference to the City Statute established in 2001. The city of Sao Paulo was a pioneer in this regard, being the first to integrate legal instruments from this avant-garde law into its Strategic Master Plan. Promulgated in 2002, this plan classified specific urban areas as ZEIS - Special Zones of Social Interest. By establishing areas in which the use of social housing is a priority, the plan has become an important element to enforce social justice. The “Nova Luz” project, currently being conducted by the Sao Paulo municipality, provides a valuable case study. The project will be the first of its kind, simultaneously applying two urban instruments, the Urban Concession and the ZEIS. The intervention will take place in 45 blocks of the centrally located Luz neighborhood, an area known for its profit potential. More than a project of  “urban renewal” aimed to interest the real estate market, disputes between the "users" of the space (residents, local business, homeless and social housing movements) and the municipality reveal a singularity whose elements allows us to reflect over the "Right to the City." On the one hand, this struggle reveals the limits given by the structural condition of contemporary capitalism on the production of the city, making us question the supposed advances in the Brazilian urban field. At the same time, the emerged conflicts point to forms of social resistance that are only possible through the presence of an urban condition, which replaces the terms of Lefebvre about a possible urban society.