Urban transformation in pieces: Financing, regulation, and implementation tricks of social interest housing in the consortium urban operations of the city of São Paulo

This work investigates the implementation of consortium urban operations (OUCs) in the city of São Paulo. It seeks to understand how Social Interest Housing (HIS) were not delivered, despite being publicly acknowledged, chosen as a priority in instances of democratic management, mandated by law, and with resources set aside for this purpose. Even so, engagement around their potential realization was sustained. The research combines approaches from critical urban studies and public policy analysis. In the field of urban studies, we draw upon critical analyses of fragmented urban transformation experiments, in pieces of the city, generically called urban development projects. In the realm of public policy, our approach is grounded in neo institutionalist implementation studies that focus on an intermediate level of analysis between the structural aspects of the state-society relationship and individual interests of actors, while acknowledging the influence of these factors. Our research hypothesis asserts that the implementation of OUCs has intensified the dissonance between the proclaimed social goals and the essential dependence on financial logics. This inconsistency does not happen due to a mere implementation deficit (lack of financial, technical, operational, and political resources), but rather due to decisions and omissions that rendered HIS unfeasible, contributing to the (re)production of social and territorial inequalities. The two-decade trajectory of implementing OUCs in São Paulo city is reconstructed, highlighting the role of these arrangements in financing municipal urban development from the late 1990s to 2021, and what was or was not achieved with these resources. The evolution of the discursive and regulatory link between HIS and urban operations is shown to be more rhetorical than effective. Finally, using mainly publicly available records of the management council meetings, shared between the governmental authorities and civil society, we characterize what we consider implementation tricks that rendered a substantial portion of HIS unfeasible in the case of the Consortium Urban Operation Água Espraiada (OUCAE). The research shows that the process of transformation occurring in fragments is mirrored in its fragmented implementation. HIS initiatives have been sidelined, delayed, and made unfeasible, thereby denying the rights of populations affected by these interventions to secure definitive housing solutions within the operational scope. Originally presented as a new urban governance model and a solution for attracting investments and promoting development through partnerships with the private sector, consortium urban operations have proven to be a far-from-novel recipe that falls short of its promise. These initiatives have inherited long-standing distortions from the Brazilian urbanization process, perpetuating and deepening social inequalities.