New Urban Agenda between Internationalization and the Right to the City

The dialectic between Global and Local in the globalized world establishes itself with force in the management of the cities. Cities, social movements and organizations, and transnational corporations have become agents in the international system, influencing not only territories but also global governance. Globalization and the influence of new actors in transnational governance have impacted the guidelines by explaining the contradictions of the New Urban Agenda and Habitat III.

The disputes in the city through the democratization of uses and the public space are increasingly fierce. The housing occupations in the central zones become a means of invoking and alerting on the urban deficit and the inequalities produced by the gentrification of certain districts of the city. Urban activism, as a way of claiming social movements fighting for housing, highlights the exclusion promoted by the capitalist system as in the case of the 4th district in the city of Porto Alegre (Brazil).

On the other hand, the international action of cities and their recognition in this context make them political actors that promote their territory and manage to raise resources with the support of the State, at times creating exceptional regimes to attract foreign investments, as in the case of mega-events which were held in Brazil such as the World Cup and the Olympic Games.

This article demonstrates the complex and contradictory relations that are established in the territory with the impact of globalization and the financialization of cities. The social movements agenda in the fight for housing and public spaces claim the right to the city, in search of a collective view on urban problems in the face of the prioritization of capital and individual dynamics that has occurred not only in Brazilian cities, but in cities of other parts of the world as well.