Segregation-both social and spatial-is an important feature of cities. The rules organizing urban space are basically patterns of social differentiation and separation. These rules vary culturally and historically, reveal the principles which structure public life, and indicate how social groups relate to each other in the space of the city. In this article I analyse the new way in which spatial and social segregation is organized in contemporary Sfio Paulo-the largest and richest city of Brazil. Its main instrument is what I call fortified enclaves, and the main rhetoric which legitimates them is the fear of crime. In the analysis of this new pattern of segregation I suggest that the public space being created in contemporary SBo Paulo and in many other cities around the world no longer relates to the modern ideals of commonality and universality. Rather, its ideal is one of separateness different social groups were packed into a small urban area and segregated by types of housing. The second urban form was the centre-periphery, in which different social groups were separated by great distances: the middle and upper classes lived in central and well-equipped neighbourhoods and the poor lived in the precarious hinterland. This form dominated the city’s development from the 1940s to the 1980s. Although many of SBo Paulo’s residents and

Teresa P. R. Caldeira teaches anthropology at UNICAMP (State University of Campinas) and is a researcher at CEBRAP (Brazilian Centre for Analysis and Planning), Rua Morgado de Mateus 615, 04015 Sio Paulo, SP, Brazil. Her research focuses on processes of social discrimination, urban segregation, violence and crime, racism, and the expansion of citizenship from a comparative perspective, especially in the context of transitions to democracy. Her book