Segregation, critical geography and socio-spatial justice: the struggle for the Right to the City in contemporary Brazil

Abstract

This article analyzes the Right to the City as a Collective Human Right from the perspective of critical geography and socio-spatial justice. It argues that urban inequality and spatial segregation—exemplified by realities like Paraisópolis and Morumbi in São Paulo—are political products of capitalist urbanization. Methodologically, it employs a critical theoretical review of authors like Lefebvre, Harvey, and Soja, combined with an analysis of the Brazilian legal framework (City Statute) and its empirical contradictions. The study demonstrates how the production of urban space perpetuates injustice. The central argument posits socio-spatial justice as the essential foundation for realizing this right, necessitating a democratic territorial transformation. The contemporary Brazilian analysis reveals that, despite progressive legislation, the right to the city is constrained by the commodification of space and the reproduction of segregation in housing policies. The article concludes that the right to the city is a political project that must reorient urban space from a commodity to a collective work, placing life, not profit, at its core.