PARTICIPATION BETWEEN FORMAL AND INFORMAL: STATE, TECHNOLOGY AND COMMUNITY COMITTMENT FOR URBAN FUTURE

The debate on the urban future has been stimulated by the shift from a model of unlimited urban growth to the recognition of the need for environmental protection and sustainable development. However, few policies are concretely implemented to generate a new quality of urban life.
The built environment is too often the result of a non-regulated set of actions and it has irreversibly modified the relation between man and environment: the latter is now subdued to the necessities of modernisation. According to the geographer Vidal de la Blanche, a new "form of life" has been created and the use of time and space are regulated by the primacy of humankind on the rules of nature.
Nevertheless, in the cities of the South, it can be noticed how strict is the link between environmental and social deterioration: environmental concerns are summed up to poverty and to social exclusion, as far as informal or illegal poor houses are located in dangerous and unhealthy areas.
Brazilian metropolis are one of the most significant example of the connection between environmental and social costs of an uncontrolled urbanisation. In the past years, the problems linked to the process of favelamento were underestimated as far as they damaged only the inhabitants of favelas. The consequences of environmental precariousness characterising the poor city did not affect the rich one and they were not considered hence as a priority.
However, a new problem is emerging and it may be the XXI century problem: water. For instance, in São Paulo, the informal settlements built around water sources are polluting water supplies, affecting the quality of life for the overall population. The paulista metropolis has to reach water supplies 150km far from the city. In Brazil, after land, water is hence becoming an increasingly worthy good. Not far in the future, a situation can be imagined where the city will have worse water and the better will be scarce and expensive. Water is likely to become a new element of urban exclusion and an urban movement of Sem Agua ("Waterless") may join the Sem Terra ("Landless") movement.
In this context, the problematique of the sustainable development cannot be separated from human development. Environmental problems have to be solved together with the implementation of practices improving the social integration of a large part of the population. Housing, healthcare, education, employment and environment are to be analysed from an integrated perspective, in order to highlight the capacities and possibilities both of the State and of local communities.
Participation is considered as one of the key element of a long lasting development in the urban context and the involvement of the population in thinking and planning the future is by now generally considered as a necessary and useful tool.
However, participation is also one of the most discussed concept, as far as there are different levels of participation: a passive one, when population is only informed, and an active one, when population is involved in planning too. What about decision-making? How can people actively participate to decision-making?
This situation is even more complex in a context of informal housing, like in Brazilian metropolis and generally in the cities of the South. It seems to be difficult to think that participatory planning can be implemented in urban areas which are not legally recognised by the State. The role of the State is hence fundamental in changing urban development: poverty is not only economic, but also, and mostly, political and social. The consequence is that it cannot be overcome without an actual political commitment. The State often only accepted the existence of informal settlements, but it did not implement policies to legitimise the situation and did not consider the necessities of inhabitants.
Renewal programmes are often implemented accordingly to real estate economic and political interests. In addition, informal situations are sometimes not even considered because of existing political interests.
A deep inequality between capacity and possibility hence exists and an actual participation of the local community seems not to be probable. Participation may be only a tool for legitimising policies already decided somewhere else. Only the State can decide if participation is legal or not, who can participate and citizenship is hence bartered for the acceptance of programmes which benefit only the part of the city in power (the rich city) and they are imposed by it.
Technology still has a multifaceted role: from one hand it seems to be the only solution to problems linked to the quality of urban life (e.g.: the case of water supplies), from the other it is likely to deepen inequalities and to increase social exclusion. As a matter of fact, the major part of the population has no access to new technologies and its capacity to use them is hence limited, like its capacity to actively participate to urban life and to the solution of urban problems. The challenge is combining a higher social quality of cities that has to be widespread and shared, and not the property of a close minority.

ESF/N-AERUS: International workshop - Geneva, Palais des Nations - May 3-6, 2000

N-AERUS: Network-Association of European Researchers on Urbanisation in the South
http://www.naerus.net