The riverfront production of urban space: Porto Alegre, Brazil

Abstract

The paper aims to unveil the process of production of space on the Riverfront in the city of Porto Alegre, capital of Rio Grande do Sul - Brazil. The study is positioned in the field of Urban Critical Studies and its fundamental repertoire is Marxist thinking from the work of Henri Lefebvre. The data analysis takes place from the concepts of totality, reality and alienation together with the triad of the production of space that provides a trialetic movement between the conceived space (of the technicians, architects and urbanists), the perceived space (the spatial practice), with the lived space (the spaces of domination and / or transformation). The argument goes through the association of the action of the real estate market in relation to investment funds, the image of the city via urban marketing and urban entrepreneurialism with technological innovation and the creation of leisure consumption spaces that operate in valuing the value of the built environment. Even so, insurgent groups through occupations and social movements put themselves in the process struggling for a social production of urban space, against the neoliberal capitalist production.