Reclaiming public space in Brasilia

Brasília, DF, Brazil.

By Eduarda Aun
public space, public sphere, counter publics, occupation, appropriation, unequal development, participation, democracy, right to the city, brasilia

This project explores the contradictions between the planned modernist city of Brasilia and its lived urban space.

Brasilia was conceived in the 1960s according to modernistic principles, which highly influenced - if not shaped - the inhabitants’ individual and collective behavior. Car-centric urbanization and the provision of great open space created distances that separated the high income class, which lives in the center of the city, from the low income population, which lives in the peripheral namely satellite cities, expressing in a clearer and sharper way than other Brazilian metropolises, the disparity between center and peripheral areas.

https://imgur.com/a/J60TQ

Where its center concentrates less than 10% of the residents of the Federal District, but 70% of its jobs, its social inequality index is higher than in São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro (Derntl 377). The disparities are manifested mainly in economic terms, where the per capita income in the Pilot Plan is R$ 5,569.46, while in one of the poorest neighborhoods, Estrutural, it is R$ 521.80, ten times lower. Yet this indicator also reveals racial inequality, where the lower the income, the more black and brown is the population. These differences are expressed in social and infrastructure terms as well. Access to schools and hospitals is deficient in these regions, as are cultural or leisure options, which are concentrated in the Pilot Plan.

While on the one hand, there are many green spaces and parks for few to use, these spaces don’t provide adequate support for social interaction and political action, which has been the criticism of many urban theorists.

On the other, there are communities with higher cultural and political engagement despite the limited access to public services, infrastructure and quality public spaces, that find marginalized space for self-expression and collective action.

There are, however, many initiatives that have started appropriating those empty green spaces, filling them not with new construction, but with people, using them as platform for protests, artistic manifestations, cultural occupations, community gardens, markets and parties, reclaiming even if indirectly, the right to the city: the right of creation and full fruition of social space.

This map shows the appropriation of public space in the last 5 years, by which means they are used and by whom. The intention was to detect patterns of occupation, appropriation and use; their temporalities, meanings, the actors involved, what was driving people to congregate and what were the physical typologies and zoning restrictions. You might find that there are many types of spaces very particular to Brasilia - superblocks, underpasses, open lawns, as well as strict zoning, which reveal the response of a new generation of citizens to imposed modernistic principles and design. The plurality of events and organizations also demonstrates the multiple counterpublics, necessary for the functioning of a democracy.

Sources and disclaimers: Some definitions of public space and appropriation of space were necessary in order to define parameters in choosing the events and initiatives that were mapped. For this project, public space was referred to spaces that were either openly accessible; that consumed collective resources; that had common impacts; and/or that were a stage for the performance of public roles, defined according to John Parkinson’s Democracy and Public Space. Also based on a more phenomenological approach, public space was defined as the space for political action, where both individual and collective experiences are expressed. In choosing the initiatives, I selected those that were occupying and using space for collective, public or social purposes, not considering informal housing settlements, for example, which reclaim space, but for private and/or inhabiting purposes. Few of the interventions are permanent, but even the temporary ones appropriate space by raising invisible barriers that create and define symbols and territorialities.

While the data related to the events was collected mainly through Facebook and through the online database of the main newspaper in Brasilia (Correio Braziliense), this information is biased by my own experience and personal network, and are therefore incomplete for the same reasons. Using data from social media is also tricky and not necessarily accurate, because not everyone is on it and is not reliable to give the exact number of people that attended the event, for example, but can give an approximate figure. However, I chose to use Facebook because over 100 million of Brazilians use it, almost 50% its population, and over 90% of Brasilia’s population has access to the internet. Working further, it would be interesting to continue mapping the occupations collectively to get a more comprehensive database.

While through the research I found that organizations - in particular cultural and community-based - are very present in social media and organize through Facebook events, the data is concentrated in central spaces and organizations that I am more acquainted with. However, it can be argued that in the modernist city, the public sphere has been extended to online streams due not only to the advent of the internet and social media, but because of the need of connection between people that both space nor public life in Brasilia provide spontaneously, whereas in the satellite cities, people and organizations are more likely to rely on traditional networks of mutual help.