Jorge Wilheim "The São Paulo New Strategic Master Plan" February 4, 2004

Jorge Wilheim, the current Head of Planning for the city of São Paulo, Brazil, spoke on February 4th in the Lounge at the Women's Faculty Club on his role in formulating a new Strategic Master Plan for the city. The new plan takes into consideration the geography and history of São Paulo, current social conditions, and projections of future growth, in trying to plan for a more liveable and equitable city for the 21st century.

São Paulo’s Strategic Master Plan: Innovations from Brazil
Heidi Hall, Department of City and Regional Planning and Program in International and Area Studies

With a metropolitan population of over 17 million people, São Paulo embodies many of the planning challenges confronting mega-cities in the 21st Century. As the city prepares to celebrate its 450th birthday, it is debating what the future of the city will be and for whom. São Paulo is a thriving, cosmopolitan city that also faces urban problems of unequal income distribution, high unemployment, insufficient transportation infrastructure and environmental degradation. Jorge Wilheim, a well-known Brazilian architect and city planner, was a key figure in the recent process to develop a strategic master plan for the city of São Paulo. In a presentation at UC Berkeley, he spoke about this process.

In establishing the present context, Wilheim laid out three important changes for Brazil and the Western world more generally. First, is the establishment of a new global geography, what he referred to as “urban archipelagos” or “islands of modern consumerism surrounded by an ocean of excluded people.” For Wilheim, the question is much less whether globalization is “bad” or “good,” but rather what to do with it. Second, the current period of transition is also characterized by a renegotiation of the social contract between old and new actors: the state, civil society, corporations and labor. Third, is the new market economy, driven by finance, and the increasing concentration of capital.

São Paulo was founded in 1554 by Jesuit missionaries, but most of the region’s growth and development has occurred in the 20th century. Migration has been a major factor propelling this intense urbanization although this has decreased to some extent in recent years. According to United Nations figures, São Paulo is the fourth largest city in the world, behind Tokyo, Mexico City and Bombay. Wilheim made the point that this metropolitan region of 17.8 million does function, but at a high human cost. For example, the average daily transportation time is two hours, public transit is poor and traffic jams involving some 5 million vehicles cover an average of 120 kilometers of roadways every day. Nearly 27 percent of the population live in irregular homes or shantytowns, while 17.8 percent are unemployed. Homicide rates are high and 15,000 tons of garbage accumulate daily. But São Paulo is also the home of some of the best universities, the most advanced research and the largest airport hub in Latin America. It provides modern and cosmopolitan services and has an active core of cultural institutions and events. What is the vision for São Paulo and who is articulating it?

The city’s recently-approved Strategic Master Plan embodies many innovative practices and has introduced new zoning regulations to begin to address some of these long-standing problems. The process of getting it approved required enormous public debate among the social actors of the city, including local government, businesses, the construction industry, NGOs and other civil society actors and residents. Wilheim, who is currently responsible for the Municipal Urban Planning Department of São Paulo in the Workers Party local government, personally attended over 250 local meetings to discuss the plan and debate alternative visions. During each of these meetings, he made the point that there is more than one public interest and cited Rousseau, who noted that the public interest is not the same as the interest of everybody. For Wilheim, the purpose of planning is to assure a higher quality of life for all members of society in an urban setting with its specific dynamics and conditions. A planner then must often speak for the interests of those who lack social and political power. The final plan that was approved reflected this broad process of discussion, negotiation and compromise, was strongly supported by the Mayor of São Paulo and had broad public support.

The leading principles for the plan are: action in solidarity towards the excluded; considering homes as social rights; completing and expanding the road and transport network in the city; rehabilitating the urban environment; strengthening public sector initiatives and planning; and transferring part of developer and building profits to public works.

Mr. Wilheim, an architect by training, also addressed many questions from the audience, on topics ranging from the technical considerations of how to write zoning regulations to achieve the plan's ends, to political and social questions about the feasability of moving residents of the favelas, or shantytowns, into social subsidized housing, and clearing the lands occupied by favelas and prone to flooding as urban open space.

Based on his close experience with this process, Wilhem laid out some of the major innovations that have resulted:

Wilheim concluded his presentation by summarizing the hopes and realities of planning in South America’s largest city. Planners need foresight, placing short-term strategies within the context of long-term thinking, developing clear policies to induce urban management, and finally, working with the market to finance the city, since the local government does not have the land or capital to do this on its own. They do, however, have the tools of planning, zoning and regulation. Civil society, an active sector in Brazil, often shows what must be done but lacks the capacity to make public policy. Planners should bridge social justice and quality of life with efficiency and pragmatism.

Jorge Wilheim is currently responsible for the Municipal Urban Planning Department of São Paulo. He also held the Rio Branco Chair in Brazilian Studies at UC Berkeley for Spring Semester 2004. He spoke for CLAS on February 4, 2004.

Mr. Wilheim speaks with those in attendance after the event.