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Chapter 7 - Market Economy and Urban Change: Impacts in the Developing World Housing policy has always played a central role in the political agenda of successive governments in Brazil. For this reason, the sector provides a valuable barometer not only of the changing political economy of the country, but also the link between national priorities and the wider framework of international development trends. Within this context, this chapter examines recent shifts in Brazilian housing policy and provision evident in the transformation from welfare to market paradigms of development. It presents evidence illustrating how the state’s current market-orientated processes and policies (perhaps by neglect as much as by explicit policy design) essentially endorse or accede to a market-driven process of land delivery which result not in decreased inequality but rather in continued insecurity and marginalisation for the urban poor. The argument presented here is that the state has failed to promote policies and mechanisms to tackle the growing inequality of income distribution – insofar as this is represented in the housing market. Indeed, the huge differentials between the poorest and the richest members of society are likely to worsen as the state increasingly assumes a peripheral position. Simultaneously, market-led provision of housing land seems equally incapable of tackling the growing social inequalities of the country. This argument is developed through the case study, presented below, of land tenure security programmes for the urban poor in Recife, Brazil. Some of the principal attempts to develop new instruments designed to tackle poverty and inequality in the housing market will be critiqued.
