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From 2001 to 2011, more than 1,500 Brazilian cities made their master plans in order to obey a federal law that reasserts, in the middle of city strategic planning and urban competitiveness era, principles related to democratic urban management, housing access for low-income people, and redistribution of wealth produced by collective effort. According to a recent national research about participatory master plans in Brazil, which comprises 526 municipal plans, the results were disappointing: the plans presented little or no progress towards promoting access to urbanized land, although gains have been observed regarding the creation of institutional channels toward popular participation in city management.
This paper analyzes 26 case studies included in the national survey and, in particular, the case of Duque de Caxias city in Rio de Janeiro metropolitan area, in order to understand how social movements demands have been incorporated in master plans laws, how the process of drawing up plans involved different social actors, and how apparent or actual political and institutional developments are manifested in the everyday process of municipal management.
Based on the analysis of the implementing process of popular movement sectors demands included in the Urban Master Plan of Duque de Caxias, we discuss the relationship between the political and institutional contexts and the selective application of municipal regulations, in a framework where social actors allegedly benefited from the legislation do not recognize the legal field as strategic for their goals achievement.