Conflicts over the right to the city in Fortaleza: Disputes between the city's strategic vision and the regulation of ZEIS

Abstract

Since the beginning of the 20th century, the production of urban space in Fortaleza has followed a logic led by the private sectors, barely regulated by the State, ratified by public investments, consolidating an uneven space. Only after the approval of the Federal Constitution and the City Statute were urban instruments introduced in the Master Plans to reverse that logic, especially the ZEIS. However, either they were not implemented, or, if so, were based on an upside-down logic that favored the city's mercantilist production. Informal settlements remain at risk of eviction, the production of new social housing continues on a peripheral basis, and public investments favor the valorization of land in specific locations. The objective of this article is, therefore, to discuss the preponderance of the mercantilist logic of space production in Fortaleza to the detriment of guaranteeing the Right to the City, even despite the delimitation of the ZEIS in PDPFor (2009). The article is one of the results of the doctoral thesis, which was developed from interviews with the agents involved, consultations of the documents at the City Hall and bibliographical references highlighted throughout the text.