About being a planner in Brazil…

When I became a planner, I didn’t know what planning was. It was walking through the favelas of my city, waiting for the crowded bus to come, or waiting for hours on the Sao Paulo traffic when the key turned, and I became a planner at heart. My professional training came years later when in my late-teenager years I went to study at FAU-USP, one of the most renowned planning schools in Latin America.

It was there that I learned about the amazing work of several Brazilian planners, such as Lucio Costa, the urban planner behind Brasilia, or Jaime Lerner, the planner behind urban acupuncture and one of the responsible for the implementation of Curitiba’s BRTs, and many others. It was also at FAU where I was able to understand the roots and consequences of the so present urban inequalities of the city (and I dare say, of the country, or even the world!). I was taken by planning professors to neighborhoods that clustered drug addicts and homeless, to illegally occupied buildings, and to favelas. With these experiences, more than theories and methodologies, I learned to build empathy, look at people in the eyes, and dedicate my professional life to improving their situation.

I worked in Sao Paulo as a planner for 8 years before moving to America. My Brazilian career was all in the municipality of Sao Paulo, where I worked in the departments of planning, buildings, landmarks, and technology. I liked to think of myself as a public servant – someone who was dedicating their professional life to serving the public. With every small action that I took – from reviewing new legislation to approving a building permit – I thought that I was somehow improving my city. I had the opportunity of doing a lot of good things while working for the city. For example, I presented proposals to modernize the building approval process, based on international experiences. I also proposed strategies to implement smart city technologies to increase public participation. I trained other city workers on public engagement methodologies, and took part in the review of the masterplan, proposing increased public participation schemes. I and my team were responsible for studying and approving several now landmarked buildings and creating legislation that determined the height and envelope of nearby buildings to ensure visibility and structural protection of historical buildings. These are only a few examples of many good and interesting works that I could do while working for the city of Sao Paulo.

However, I would say that most of the projects that I wanted to implement didn’t come through. Not because of a lack of interest (mine or of other planners), but because of a bureaucratic and plastered system, that barely embraced changes. After my almost decade of experience working for the city, I came to realize that, in my experience, the best way to have some influence in the city-making process in Sao Paulo is either to get involved with politics (for example, becoming a city councilor) or gain international acknowledgment. I realized that many of my professors at FAU-USP, who are until now currently influencing and improving city-making, chose one of these two paths. I chose the latter.