Title: Inequality and the commodification of urban life: challenges to sustainable development in contemporary Brazil

Authors: Jose Ricardo Barbosa Goncalves, Maria Alejandra Caporale Madi

Addresses: Instituto de Economia, UNICAMP, Brazil. ' Instituto de Economia, UNICAMP, Brazil

Abstract: This paper presents a discussion about the unequal nature of the transformations in urban living conditions resulting from the prevailing neoliberal economic model in Brazil. In a historical perspective, it suggests that the social organisation in urban areas has been increasingly subordinated to the logic of the financial capital. As a result, housing markets and infrastructure services have been completely transformed into a locus of money and land commodification. In the current process of urban expansion, inequalities have been strengthened within cities overwhelmed by violence.

Keywords: inequality; urbanisation; neoliberal model; sustainable development; Brazil; urban life; commodification; sustainability; economics; violence; housing markets; infrastructure services.

DOI: 10.1504/IJGE.2010.035335

International Journal of Green Economics, 2010 Vol.4 No.2, pp.134 - 144

Published online: 23 Sep 2010 *

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