instrumenting
Because it's not just my house that is in game, it's the center of the city of São Paulo.
There are many things like that on the street, in the neighborhood.
Yes, yes, why? Because the progress is coming.
It's not that we don't want to improve, we want progress, we want the neighborhood to be more beautiful.
We want that, but now that the neighborhood is going to improve, I'm going to have to leave here.
Because I stayed in this neighborhood in the worst moment of it.
Why now do I have to leave here? I'm not going, I'm not going to leave.
Because you have a government that has a population like that, you have to give school,
you have to give life conditions, you have to give health,
and how can the project of Novaluz not give a condition to people who are here.
Look, this one is locked in the middle of the neighborhood, you can't pretend that it doesn't exist.
The secretary of the project says that the project of Novaluz is a structural and non-social project.
What is a mess? Because how is it one thing and not the other? Who is going to influence it?
Human beings.
Now it's not, the project is this and how good, I don't know what they know how to do,
but the project of Novaluz, besides all this, it is so bad, so technically bad,
the same thing as we speak in Portuguese, a precarious point of view of an urban plan,
because I know the proposal of London, it's another story, it's 500 times better,
and even a thousand times better than the project of Rio,
but also because London had resistance, there was debate, there was negotiation, there was a lot of things.
It started because the mayor of São Paulo, called Gilberto Casabe, by means of amendments, of law,
approved the camera of the voters here in the city of São Paulo,
called the Law of the Urban Concession, which gives the right to the public power to do whatever they want to live here.
Because theoretically, the city will be disappropriated by a private company,
and theoretically this cannot be done, this is unconstitutional.
In the city strategies, and this has become more and more present in the years,
especially from the end of the 1980s and 1990s,
this idea that the national state will be withdrawing,
the public budget will decrease, so the big issue is how to attract investments,
how to make partnerships with the private capital,
and these operations that have a mega event behind them, they are miraculous,
because you sell the city for free.
The sponsors of the event, like the businesses in the real estate field,
the real estate in the real estate field around these events,
the projects that are behind this, all of them earn a large global sale.
Gilberto Casabe's family is connected to the real estate market,
he himself is a real estate broker,
so you realize that he is actually leaving a law in São Paulo,
approved of his management, and he will take the right of anyone to live.
So, the law is problematic, because this is what Raquel says,
if the new light passes through the whole city.
It is an arbitrary, financial thing, the real estate is gentrification,
yes, there is no other answer to it.
It is the most interesting case at the moment,
because, precisely, the culture as a starting point of the gentrification process,
I would say that São Paulo is one of the cities in the world
that, as amazing as it seems, did not have a total gentrification process
of its center, because it has a resistance.
And the light process is so clear, because if you try,
then there is a resistance, you will not,
try from the other, so now they looked for this last form,
which is this terminal, and it starts everywhere,
it ruins everything, it takes everyone away,
and then, to be able to do it.
When the demolitions that I will take you there to see started to happen,
and the desappropriations, I started to get very worried.
This was 2009, 2010, why?
Because it began to fall, the building,
and the entire square in this neighborhood.
This entire square was demolished,
the people were desappropriated,
and it became a parking lot,
because we do not know who it is.
Nobody knows who put the car here.
There too, they demolished,
many years, three years ago it is like this,
nothing is done, nothing, nothing, nothing.
And there in the background,
which is where they are going to build the dance culture center,
and it is a gigantic square,
which is also demolished for three years,
and it is an useless space,
and it is right in front of the Sao Paulo Hall.
There was a percentage of demolition and desappropriation
that does not understand why.
And everything that is transparent will be demolished.
Music
Music
of the license to tell
that this is where it is now
this high building
was a house, old, a abandoned palace
it was here, your boy, that I killed the bear and the toy
we built our mall
but one day, I don't even want to remember
the men came with the tools that the owner sent to knock down
we took all of our things
and went to the middle of the street to appreciate the demolition
how sad, how I felt
each such thing that fell from the river in my heart
I live here since I was born
I have a very strong connection with this place
because it was here, in this city of São Paulo, very simple
that my father, when he came from Argentina, fled from war
like this immigration story
it was here, in São Paulo, in this region of Santa Figena da Luz
that was welcomed, I had work, I met my mother
and here we are built
and to forget, we sing like this
there is one thing that we also say, the term revitalization is wrong
because of the life where there is no more life than here
yes, it is a quiet place, you can walk for days without problems
at night, a special care, because it is not an area that lives in people
in all the streets that are empty, it is only the direction where they have to go
because sometimes we have people who use drugs, who are there
because the streets are too empty
that varies from Luz, right?
music
so what do I have? I have the owner, I have the tenant
I have the court, I have the occupations
and I have the street resident
which is the expression that is used
people in street situations, that they say that no one lives in the street
so there are these five residents, right?
here in the center of São Paulo
music
so they are people in street situations
they here in Brazil have no right to anything, there is nothing
nothing, nothing
music
I created this college to generate professionals connected to the technology sector
because here there is a great technological vocation, this neighborhood too
music
the garbage here, I feel, because there is a lot of electronics, it is a very good garbage
it is a rich garbage that we call it
because there are things that are burned, the guy throws it out
but if you change it, it works
so what happens?
there are a lot of people who start to open garbage bags
to go after these things that have value
what happens here is very common
the person opens the garbage to get it
and then there is a life cap, he cuts his hand, he cuts himself inside
he has to have gloves, a protector
so he has to be careful
this neighborhood has a very bad nickname
which is Cracolândia
Cracolândia is something that devastates not only São Paulo, not only Brazil
but also the whole world
and it is a drug that is generating a great sadness
music
and your work here is very difficult, very hard or not?
it is complicated, because you don't work with a social area
our garbage is repressive
so you don't have to have it on your social or conversational side
or have something, it is complicated
but they are not dangerous people
or criminals
that's not it
another thing
Cracolândia is not a place
it is a group of people, it is a group of itinerants
people are discriminated against
if someone isn't an art, you're an art
No!
the project of new year gets terminated for the reasons of Cracolândia
the project of new year is needed because look how it is the neighborhood
how that is
as I was in Bahia, what kind of thing is it?
And there was a group of traders here in the region, which is a street called Santa Efigênio Street.
And it is a very famous street because of its start.
So they organized, had an association, and they came in with action,
they were doing their movement, their way.
But when I saw their positioning, what they said to the press,
I didn't feel contemplated.
The position of the traders is to stop, to stop the process and make another totally different project.
The position of the residents is to try to minimize.
The position of the housing movements is to try to gain space for housing in there.
So there are several different agendas, but that are articulated in this front at the moment.
I told her that we have to fund an association of residents,
because without an organized system, an organized movement within this process,
there is no way to reindicate the rights of those who live here.
And we started a battle to try to take the knowledge of the population,
what was happening.
So this thing of megaphone on the street works very well.
So with a blog I get a X number of people,
but with a megaphone on the street I get a population that needs information.
Today we are allies to the traders in the council, which is very good,
because actually everyone is fighting for the same interest.
I mean, there are different interests, but this is the goal of everyone to be included.
I believe that one of the great taboos that we broke here in the neighborhood,
and I say that I start by myself, because I also didn't like occupation.
And when I called, that I live in a place of low income,
and that those people are also low income, I said we are not equal,
and we are going through the same problem.
And I think these are our achievements, to break these invisible walls,
of the resident who is here, with the occupation, of the housing,
of the business with the resident.
We are going to pass the biggest waterways that exist in Sao Paulo.
Inside the project Nova Luz, it is like an entertainment area.
So you imagine that in this place you want to make an entertainment center
with so many that already have in Sao Paulo.
Here our struggle is, Mauá continues to be a low income neighborhood.
Now if people don't come here, they will be on the street,
they will be in a very difficult situation, it's not easy here anymore,
but it's not here.
You have to, it's an area, once it's an urban instrument,
that reserves areas for the housing of social interest,
that is, it is already a priority to build the housing of social interest in this area.
This is the big differential, to deal with Nova Luz
in relation to other projects, because of ZEI.
That is, the reach of this instrument in the central area
is much greater, because you will reserve areas that are valued
to build popular housing.
And then there is another need, why?
Because we have metro lines, trains, buses, trade, school, education,
we have everything close here.
Only because we don't have, it is the inclusion of the demand of low income to be here.
In the contract there was the regulation,
which is the regulation of Sao Paulo, the director's plan,
which should have been formed, a management council,
and this management council should have approved,
it must go through all the phases to approve the urbanization plan of ZEI and Nova Luz.
We, together with the social movements,
organize an inclusion proposal,
that within the chairs that will occupy ZEI,
within the civil society, all social movements will be included there.
There is a part of this gentrification that happens inevitably,
regardless of the political forces that operate,
in the mobile market, and so on.
But there is a large part of this that can be avoided
through inclusion mechanisms.
What is our great work,
is to include social, the demand of social,
or our struggle in the ZEI and the association council
is to minimize the impacts and damage
that the Nova Luz project will cause in people's lives.
So we managed to put within the prefecture
to debate the public power, people in street situations,
the association of the elderly,
which is a region that has many elderly people,
the curtsies, the occupations,
the property owners of the mobile market and the inclinations,
and logistics in the business of the region.
So we managed to gather water and oil.
You may not think that we are totally against the project,
because we think that there is nothing to be demolished,
because people have the right to stay there,
businesses are legitimate, which is true.
But at the same time, the issue of the ZEI in this area
is very specific, because it is a social interest area.
And the Nova Luz project, Prazeis,
it enables 10 times more people
to live in that region.
So there is no way to close your eyes to this
and ignore this possibility.
Of course not with the criteria that the prefecture puts,
because their criteria are strictly constructive.
For example, there are businesses that are there
since the beginning of the century,
that represent the history, the memory of the region,
and the project ignores this,
proposes demolitions in these places.
The first question when I made the meeting in the prefecture,
the first question I asked was,
why are you based on the Nova Luz project
in international references?
Nothing against it.
But we have a brasility,
and we also have a root and a way of living,
because this is not being considered.
Thank you very much.
Thank you very much.
Thank you very much.
Thank you very much.
Thank you very much.
