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79. THE CRISIS OF CITIESASACRISIS OF URBAN LIFEAND PUBLIC SPACE
BARCELOS, Roberto Hübner
(betohubner@yahoo.com.br)Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS), Brasil
ABSTRACT
The current crisis of modern cities is not due only to economic factors, but also to our personal crisis
as individuals isolating ourselves and losing links to the urban space, to the public sphere and, thus,
to one another. The city is not simply an agglomeration of housings, but the result from the
interrelation among groups and individuals. Here, it is made a revision of studies about the city by
different aspects, particularly in Brazil, analyzing how part of this degradation was not incidental, but
several times was intentional by part of agents who try to change the historical role of the city to their
own ends.
Keywords:
Cities; urban life; public spaces; life quality.
A CRISE DAS CIDADES COMO CRISE DA VIDA URBANA E DO ESPAÇO
PÚBLICO
RESUMO
A crise atual das cidades modernas não é devida apenas a fatores econômicos, mas à nossa crise
como indivíduos se isolando e perdendo conexões com o espaço urbano, com o público e por
consequência, uns com os outros. A cidade não é apenas uma aglomeração de habitações, mas o
resultado das inter-relações mútuas entre grupos e indivíduos. A fim de se obter uma visão mais
ampla e conjunta deste fenômeno, este trabalho faz uma revisão histórica sobre pontos de vista
econômicos, sociológicos, políticos, urbanísticos e ambientais, com ênfase no Brasil, concluindo
como parte dessa degradação não se deu somente por motivos incidentais, mas várias vezes
intencionais de agentes que buscam mudar a função histórica da cidade para seus próprios fins.
Palavras-chave:
Cidades; vida urbana; espaços públicos; qualidade de vida.
1. INTRODUÇÃO
An excellent way of presenting the dilemma to which this paper refers comes from the words of
sociologist and urban planner Robert Park: “The city is the most successful human attempt of
remaking the world according to his heart’s desires. However, if the city is the world man created, it
is also the world, which he is condemned to live in from now on. Thus, indirectly and with no clear
notion of the nature of his task, in making the city, the man remade himself” (HARVEY, 2013).
So, if this is the case, why do we watch this crisis in most modern cities, in particular, the ones from
developing countries? If the city is one of our best creations, why are we degrading it with increasing
levels of social inequality, criminality, isolation, abandonment and environmental problems? The
answer is probably in the same sentence: the cities and the world around us reflect what is happening
with us; they show what we choose to do as a society.
There may be people affirming that our future as a species depends on our return to nature, in the
sense of letting go the megalopolis of today and moving to small autonomous self-sufficient
communities. By the way, this looks the aim of many self-proclaimed “sustainable” designs
nowadays. The objective here is to show to opposite, as it is in the cities the key to our improvement
as a society and the best chance for the resolution of the current crisis, let that be environmental,
economic or social one. Cities do not generate diseases; they only strongly expose the consequence