Residents, figurane and protagonist: An analysis of popular housing estate [Mutuário, figurino e protagonista: Uma análise de conjunto habitacional popular]

Abstract

This paper approaches the popular strategies of exceeding the status of assisted by public housing policies and also the strategies of the public management of São Paulo Habitational and Urban Development Company (SPHUD), in order to solve the deficit and the housing problems. In a location surrounded by the housing estates, there are productions of subjectivity and social representations. It stimulates a peripheral image of the place, which creates in the identity of the residents a negative feeling, concerning the sociability of the neighborhood. The concrete aspects versus the sociability are the key elements of the residents of SPHUD, in evaluating whether the housing state is good or bad. Nevertheless, in this stressed scenery, there is the production of "symbolic Spatial Trenches" - antagonism of interests among public policies/ population/environment.