Planning in context: Empirical challenges versus normative instruments in large Brazilian cities

Abstract

Large Brazilian cities have historically faced extraordinary challenges, such as enormous housing deficits, exhausted infrastructures, fragmented spatial structures with acute mobility issues, and public security concerns. At the same time, many normative tools have been progressively created to address at least some of these challenges. This work confronts such two worlds: the empirical world of functional and material problems found in large Brazilian cities and the set of planning instruments designed to cope with the complexities of large-scale urbanisation. First, it analyses the main empirical issues through extensive data on the problems encountered in the country's largest cities. Second, it evaluates recent planning tools used to tackle these challenges, focusing on the specific case of the largest city in Brazil, São Paulo. The effectiveness of these tools in real-world situations is found to be mixed. The paper concludes by discussing the contradictions and potential paths for planning innovations in Brazilian cities, highlighting the importance of evidence-based planning and context-specific tools to address conflicting and unpredictable city-making processes.