Through an initiative by Insper and the consultancy firm Diagonal, six of the leading names in social urban planning in Brazil have come together to create a Practical Guide with strategies and methodologies for implementing projects. With decades of experience, the authors analyzed successful cases in Latin America and developed a step-by-step guide to assist in the execution of new projects in Brazilian cities.

 

“The main idea is to encourage the creation of social urban planning initiatives and present paths for their implementation. Based on successful experiments, we have listed the necessary fundamental steps in the Guide, which is aimed at politicians as well as public and private managers,” says Kátia Mello, professor at the postgraduate course in Social Urban Planning at the Center for City Studies – Arq.Futuro Laboratory at Insper, co-founder and co-president of the consultancy firm Diagonal.

 

Throughout her professional career, Kátia has amassed vast experience in implementing, monitoring, and evaluating projects aimed at improving the quality of life of populations in vulnerable situations, in various national and international contexts, including 22 countries – especially in Latin America and Africa.

 

To her mind, the Practical Guide to Social Urban Planning is essential for creating new, lasting initiatives. “The material clearly presents the methodologies and paths for implementing policies, in addition to listing the tools that are available and the pillars that underpin a good project. The Guide summarizes the evaluation of 12 experiments in Brazil and other Latin American countries, including the points of view of those who participated in their implementation,” she says.

 

According to Marisa Moreira Salles, co-founder of Insper’s Arq.Futuro Laboratory and member of the Advisory Board of the Dean of the School of Architecture and Urban Planning at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), the Guide also helps to empower people. “We were careful enough to write in a language that is easy to understand, so that the material is accessible and helps more people promote change,” she says.

 

The step-by-step process for creating successful and long-lasting social urban planning projects that meet the demands of the population has evolved over time. For Álvaro Jucá, co-founder and co-president of Diagonal, the Guide also maps the evolution of said processes. “It is a material that is constantly updated. For example, a few years ago, technical demographic assessments took months, but today they can be carried out quickly by using drones. Likewise, concepts are constantly evolving, and having up-to-date material is essential for adopting best practices.”

 

 

Practical actions towards real results

 

According to the authors, the launch of the Guide helps to move away from the empiricism of meetings with communities, which most of the time depend on the public agents involved and the convincing capacity of their respective arguments. “The Guide brings objectivity to the approaches and points out techniques designed to reach the various interlocutors that are part of the transformation movement,” says Ricardo Balestreri, coordinator of the Social Urban Planning and Public Security Center of the Center for City Studies and professor of the postgraduate course in Social Urban Planning at the institution.

 

To Eliana Sousa Silva, coordinator and professor of the lato sensu postgraduate course in Social Urban Planning at the Center for City Studies, as well as founder and president of the social organization Redes da Maré (from the original) in Rio de Janeiro, the material shows that social urban planning practices must be a systemic experiment. “The Guide reinforces that it is necessary to go beyond isolated interventions. We need to think about the perspective of urbanism within the scope of equality in the city and work on the specific demands of regions with fewer established public policies. The material helps new projects bring this dimension of the city in its deepest concept.”

 

The intersectoral nature of public policies is one of the highlights of the Guide. The authors listed the six pillars of successful social urban planning: the need for integrated policies; shared governance; the integrated saturation of citizen security and social policies; the creation of priority care groups; continued integrated services in dedicated facilities; and progressive investments in the territory. “Social urban planning presupposes this integration and should be a state policy rather than a government policy. The focus is to permeate all planning and be a continuous plan,” says Kátia.

 

To Marisa, the Guide also has the role of raising awareness among the population. “If citizens aren’t aware, then you won’t be able to demand actions from governments and make changes,” she says. “Social urban planning is not done for the community, but with the community, and by understanding its real needs,” adds Balestreri.

 

 

Cases from the Social Urban Planning Guide

 

According to the authors, the experiment in Medellín, Colombia, which began between 2004 and 2007 and continues to this day, provides current and inspiring insights. The city is a benchmark and matrix case in Latin America in the intervention category and reveals a broad pact with the entire society, built on the generation of public-private-community alliances that constituted true dialogues of social cohesion.

 

For the authors, the Colombian example reveals a profound social, educational, and cultural transformation, with urban content and results, and demonstrates a project for the building of a society, not just the construction of a city.

 

“We consider this the best example, because Medellín continues to be a successful, long-lasting project. Despite changes in government and moments of oscillation, the city has managed to maintain a consistency that is rarely seen,” says Tomas Alvim, co-founder of Insper’s Arq.Futuro Laboratory and general coordinator of the Center for City Studies.

 

Another eleven cases are mapped in the Guide, such as initiatives in Rio Grande do Sul and Recife. They help list the best practices in social urban planning. “The discontinuity of initiatives is the main struggle. Therefore, the Guide shows the step-by-step process of building a base that helps overcome political issues,” says Alvim.

 

To Balestreri, the material helps to nurture ongoing experiments. “Several students in our latest edition of the Social Urban Planning course are involved in initiatives spread throughout the country, in states such as Pernambuco, Rio Grande do Sul, São Paulo, and Amazonas, and were excited to have access to material that will help improve processes and contribute to choosing paths,” he observes.

 

 

Insper as part of the social urban planning ecosystem

 

According to the authors, the Guide is a response to the demands of professionals who work in the field and have already been at Insper. In its four years of existence, the postgraduate course in Social Urban Planning has seen students with high demands for access to materials that present “how-to” implement initiatives based on this transformative intervention tool.

 

“The idea is to create a reference bibliography on the subject, alongside the Social Urban Planning Guide (published in 2023 by the Laboratory, also under the Publishing Company BEĨ), that will help fill the gap that exists when seeking systematized experiments in the field of Social Urban Planning,” explains Alvim.

 

The material is recommended for all people who are interested in thinking and acting in the city, with a focus on engaging in processes of socio-territorial change that aim to address inequalities in vulnerable regions. It will be officially launched at an event at Insper’s headquarters on September 24.

 

The digital version of the Guide will be free of charge and the funds raised with the sales of the printed version will be used to award scholarships for Insper's postgraduate studies in Social Urban Planning.