POLÍTICAS DE REVITALIZAÇÃO DO CENTRO HISTÓRICO DE SÃO LUÍS - MA E LUTAS PELO DIREITO À CIDADE: A não efetividade dos programas de habitação e a permanência das formas precárias de moradia

Abstract

This doctoral work aimed to carry out the analysis of the permanence of precarious forms of housing in the Historic Center of São Luís (CHSL). It departs from the logic of capitalist urban development, understanding it as a producer of inequalities, to analyze the non-effectiveness of housing policies in Brazilian Historic Centers and analytically reconstitute the local specificity. The thesis is defended that the housing problem of the popular classes in the Historic Center of São Luís, despite being acute and growing, is deliberately hidden by the dominant ideology that supports the idea that poor people cannot live in the Historic Center. As a result, the urban space listed at the federal level, included in the UNESCO world heritage list, would have a natural vocation for tourism and other uses of interest to the market and the wealthy classes. The theme is of significant relevance, as it highlights a reality characterized by: crimes of abandonment and speculative use of the properties that make up the listed urban complex; the lack of housing policy for the popular classes; and because of this, the establishment of precarious housing in abandoned buildings. Faced with the issue presented, the research sought answers to the following issue: what are the challenges for overcoming precarious forms of housing in the Historic Center of São Luís, Maranhão? To undertake the analysis, due to the complexity of the issue, the precarious forms of housing were classified into 4 (four) forms: privately owned housing; social housing; occupations; and tenement rental rooms. An interdisciplinary methodological perspective was used, supported by theoretical tools from neo-Marxist and non-Marxist authors, but who think about the issue in a critical and complex way. As it is a social research, theoretical and methodological procedures considered necessary to achieve the proposed objective were adopted. Through theoretical analysis, the urbanization process that occurred on a global scale from the British Industrial Revolution onwards was discussed, its relations with the logic of capitalist accumulation and the social inequalities produced in the global north and south, and the specificities of unequal Brazilian urbanization. Through document analysis, it was possible to reconstitute the national and local panorama of urban revitalization policies and among them, the attempts to implement programs and housing projects for the Brazilian Historic Centers. Based on the field work, a characterization of the socioeconomic conditions of the residents of each precarious housing type was carried out and the survival strategies of these subjects were identified. Finally, alternatives considered necessary are presented to overcome the precarious forms of housing in the Historic Center of São Luís.