Dialectics in the production and use of a green area in São Paulo/Brazil. Conflicts and appropriations of Augusta Park

Keywords: Green gentrification, real estate market, appropriation of nature, production of urban space, Augusta Park
Session Type: Virtual Paper Abstract
Day: Tuesday
Session Start / End Time: 3/1/2022 11:20 AM (Eastern Time (US & Canada)) - 3/1/2022 12:40 PM (Eastern Time (US & Canada))
Room: Virtual 6

Abstract

With a dialectic approach, our goal is to demonstrate a thesis about the social production of green spaces in the capitalist city, tensing it with the appropriation of these areas by the real estate market (antithesis) in order to build a synthesis reveling the uneven access to nature in the city. A public green park in construction in São Paulo, demanded by an organized social movement, that had struggled with the municipality and real estate developers for years, should represent a victory for the environmental protection and the construction of an open public park. However, the Augusta Park is already appropriated in the real estate market, with new residential developments using the green area to boost their prices, indicating a possible green gentrification by exclusionary displacement and spatial selectivity. To revel this process, we had examined the conflicts behind the park construction and the strategies of the real estate developers, analyzed the prices of new estates and performed some field research to produce a landscape study. In less than 2 years since the park announcement, three new developments around the park present a valorization of approximately 100% over the average prices of other properties in the same neighborhood, indicating that the green gentrification is developing fast. The critical perspective was fundamental to reveal: the contradictions within the park construction; the consideration of the surroundings in greening projects; and the urgency of regulations to promote a fair and universal access to nature in the city.