The valorisation of São Paulo's Historical Center and the production of Parque Dom Pedro II as a territorial stock

• Grant number: 21/09514-3
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Scientific Initiation
• Start date: April 01, 2022
• End date: December 31, 2022
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - Geography - Human Geography
• Principal Investigator: César Ricardo Simoni Santos
• Grantee: Julia Gabriela Farias Bastos
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Filosofia, Letras e Ciências Humanas (FFLCH). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil

Abstract

From the 1960s on, the devaluation of São Paulo's central areas has been in progress. Caused, among other reasons, by the emergence of new centralities, more specialized and equipped to meet the new demands of the financial capital, the process is part of the dynamics of the valuation of capital invested in the real estate circuit, an essential movement for the reproduction of capital. Therefore, it is understandable that the moments of valorization, devaluation, and revaluation of a locality are often part of more or less conscious projects and are not random events: they are endowed with logic and supported by urban planning. However, with the tendency observed in metropolitan territories since the 1990s to transform the city from a circulation space, locus of capitalist accumulation, into an object of capital's methodological interest, urban restructuring projects are implemented in order to reinsert São Paulo's Historical Center in the circuit of real-estate investments, among which the Operações Urbanas (urban interventions) stand out. Despite the attempt to revalue the region through the Operação Urbana Centro, it is observed that the State's efforts are not having the announced effects, especially in specific points of the Center such as the Parque Dom Pedro II Bus Terminal, Mercado Municipal de São Paulo, Glicério district and their vicinities. It is proposed to analyze these spaces as part of a process of geographical differentiation that took place within the Operação Urbana Centro targeted area, culminating in the production of terrain supply or territórios-reserva, in order to guarantee the possibilities of future accumulation.(AU)