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Chapter 4 Metropolitan Governance in Brazil Institutions, Organizations, and Lessons from Intermunicipal Consortia p e t e r k . s p i n k , m a r c o a n t o n i o c . t e i x e i r a , a n d r o b e r t a c l e m e n t e In Brazil, metropolitan regions emerged as an explicit and debated urban phenomenon in the second quarter of the twentieth century and would later be included in the formal public sector institutional framework in the mid-1970s during military rule (1964–84), when a technocratic version of military developmentalism was strongly in evidence (Souza 2003). The first regions to be formally designated by the legislation fit the broad descriptors that have been used for this comparative study (large, multijurisdictional , and with continuous urban development), but later the state governments would designate other, much smaller regions with more scattered municipalities simply as a way of imposing regional planning. Out of the thirty-six existing regions designated as metropolitan, some twenty can be considered as typical conurbations, occupying together less than 2 percent of the landmass and being home to some 39 percent of the national population. While Brazil’s 1988 democratic constitution reconfirmed the metropolitan concept, it failed to provide the necessary guidelines for governance . As a result, in places like Greater São Paulo, nearly twenty million people in thirty-nine municipalities attempt to improve living conditions 100 using the same institutional framework as a rural municipality with fewer than one thousand inhabitants and in which the entire adult population can meet together in the local civic center or church hall. In this chapter we look at the recent history of metropolitan governance in Brazil and ask what possibilities exist for a more effective response to some very urgent social demands. In seeking an answer we find ourselves drawn to some fairly classic questions about organization and institutionalization and to the argument that—at least in Brazil—metropolitan issues are strong in description and debate but weak in governance and action, placing federalism at a crucial fork in its development. Urbanization and the Growth of the Metropolitan Regions in Brazil Most reviews of Brazil’s urban history point, with varied emphasis, to four specific stages. In the first, initial concentrations along the coast served as links between the country’s plantation economy and the Portuguese metropolis, Lisbon. Here, Salvador, which was the first capital between 1549 and 1763, was a focal point for most of the trade between Brazil and Portugal and also, as its architectural heritage shows, an institutional center for the Catholic Church. The commodity that marked this earlier period was sugar, and even though this could be found in various parts of the coastal region, its early imprint was strongest from the southern half of the state of Bahia through to Pernambuco. Salvador, also the capital of Bahia, remained the most populated city in the country until Rio de Janeiro began to increase in importance and population as a result of the increasing flow of minerals from inland Minas Gerais to the nearest coastal ports and became the country’s second capital from 1763 to 1960. In 1808, with the arrival of the Portuguese royal family in retreat from Napoleon, Rio was transformed into the seat of the Portuguese empire , a role it assumed until 1821. With independence, Rio remained the national capital, serving also as the port for the export of sugarcane and coffee (which would become the next boom commodity) from the surrounding regions. Another coastal town that experienced considerable expansion due to sugarcane would be the port of Recife, the capital of Pernambuco in the Northeast. The port, protected by the reefs that provided its name, not only was a growing center for distribution but also served as the residential center for many of those involved in the sugarcane industry, which Metropolitan Governance in Brazil 101 grew up in the semicoastal region. Coffee in São Paulo would later generate a similar effect, although here the port outlet was Santos and the farms were inland well beyond the coastal range. The town of São Paulo sat at an altitude of 2,500 feet on a plateau within the coastal mountains where rivers flow inland to make the natural boundaries of the River Plate basin. For much of its early life it was a simple staging post, and when independence...

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