From Segregation to Diversity: Dwelling and Urban Requalification in the Central Area of São Paulo

Abstract

This paper focuses on diversity as a guideline for recent housing programs promoted by public and private agents in central São Paulo. In the last decades this area, that lost 40% of its population, experienced a major crisis due to the transference of dominant centrality towards more upscale urban regions. Recent interventions aim to revert these trends, and since housing is a crucial factor in this effort, several special programs have been launched bymunicipal, state and federal agencies in order to provide housing in the historic downtown area, presenting a variety of targets and solutions: shantytowns and slums, adaptation of old office buildings and hotels, social rent, support for reconversion. Real estate firms have already begun to invest in the renovation of old apartment buildings. While the danger of gentrification has been denounced, and others have warned against the risk of converting central neighborhoods in low-income ghettos, central São Paulo seems to be oriented towards diversity - as a multiethnic and multicultural hub, and also due to its architectural variety, demanding creative design solutions aimed at different income levels, ensuring the diversified social profile that characterizes the central cityscape is maintained.