Acceso usuarios
Ana Cristina Fernandes
This essay explores the reasons for the reduced negative effects of the 2008 globalfinancial crisis on Brazil and its cities by applying an analysis that connects these urbaneffects with the national dynamics. Despite substantial variation within the country,reduced impact can be credited to the response to the crisis by the current Lulaadministration and to features of the country’s urbanization process. First, universalredistributive social programmes, together with an enlarged domestic market, betterinsertion in the global economy, prudential regulation and a stable fiscal situation,have put the country in a comfortable position to react to the crisis by adoptingcountercyclical policies. Second, given the advanced urbanization in Brazil, social andactive macroeconomic policies have produced decisive and specific effects on the urbanfabric. Recent processes of inland urbanization have created new areas of regional andurban dynamics, thus the impact of the crisis on cities has not only been mild, affectingthe most industrialized and internationally oriented metropolises hardest, but has alsobecome an opportunity for strengthening urban areas through active macroeconomicand social policies and helping foster a more decentralized national urban network,thereby leading to stronger links between social inclusion and territorial cohesion.
