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Metropolitan Regions in Brazil:

Institutional Arrangements and Innovative Experiences

Susan Eghrari, Architect, Ph.D. Student

Programa de Pesquisa e Pós-Graduação – Faculdade de Arquitetura e Urbanismo (PPG-FAU)

Universidade de Brasília(UnB)

Brasília – DF, Brazil

e-mail: susaneghrari@gmail.com

Paper presented in Track 6 (National, Regional & Local Planning Globalization) at the

3rd

World Planning Schools Congress, Perth (WA), 4-8 July 2011

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Metropolitan Regions in Brazil:

Institutional Arrangements and Innovative Experiences

ABSTRACT: Metropolitan regions in Brazil have entered a global competition and are

within the competence of the state governments, since the country’s new Constitution was

approved in 1988, when a retraction of the federal government on metropolitan issues

occurred. This paper focuses on the institutional arrangements and innovative experiences of

Brazilian metropolitan regions, which currently count over thirty, whether their management

structure obey a vertical model or inter-municipal consortia. Through a comparative method

research of some recent metropolitan experiences, analyzed issues include: a) representative

structure, b) governance structure and c) urban planning and management competences.

Providing this background, this paper addresses innovative forms of metropolitan

institutional arrangements and proposals that can be constructed.

Keywords: metropolitan regions (Brazil), institutional arrangements, metropolitan structure,

governance structure

1 Introduction

Metropolitan regions, metropolitan areas, metropolises in all continents, within their

dynamic governance relationships, face the challenge of planning and managing their

jurisdiction areas. Globalizing forces, in the last two decades, have impacted differently on

the course of development of these metropolitan areas, resulting either in a sustainable and

inclusive growth or a lack of inter-institutional cooperation in metropolitan governance.

As Kubler and Heinelt (2005) affirm the twenty-first century will be metropolitan.

Globalization of economic, social and cultural processes are present in metropolitan areas,

which ―play the role of nodal points where human activities concentrate‖ (Kubler and

Heinelt, 2005). A common denominator analyzing the process of metropolization, according

to Klink (2008) is the fact that central cities grow beyond their original limits and transform

into complex systems which have intense interdependencies – social, economic,

environmental and political-administrative – and are part of the overall agglomeration.

There are recurrent problems which affect many of the metropolitan regions all over the

world, in Latin America, and in Brazil specifically, as urban congestion, air and water

pollution, deteriorating infrastructure, urban mobility, expectations on job creation and

income polarization.

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The rapid growth of the urban population in Brazil compared to the total population of the

country, from 1940 to 2000, indicates that the former showed a growth three times the

Brazilian population growth in the same period of 60 years1. Urban population approached 80

percent of total national population in 1996 and presents different concentrations of urban

agglomerations among the five macro-regions of the country2 (Monte-Mór, 2000). Already

by the year 2000, the rate of urbanization had reached 81.2 percent of the Brazilian

population of 170 million people (Rezende and Garson, 2006).

According to Gouvêa (2005) this sudden growth explains the continuous aggravation of a

series of urban problems such as housing shortages, leading to formation of slums and

shantytowns, transportation gridlock, inadequacy of basic urban services like public

transportation, water supply, sewage system, or equipment such as hospitals, schools among

others.

The disorganized city growth and economic stagnation process (in the 1980s in Brazil),

contributed to increase unemployment rates, criminality, environmental degradation and

urban violence in most of Brazilian metropolitan areas.

An issue that concerns scholars and researchers is related to the limits of a metropolitan area.

How common services, taxing power, urban growth, urban sprawl, gentrification,

intergovernmental relations, the appropriation of natural resources, among other themes on

debate, find their place in the boundaries of metropolitan areas. Monte-Mór (2000) opens a

different vision about this matter. The author argues about frontiers in a metropolitan area,

which represent the ―third position between the rich and the poor, the developed and the non-

developed, the civilized and the un-civilized‖. Indeed the concentration of both wealth and

poverty in metropolitan regions has deepened the socio-spatial fragmentation and class

confrontations within the urban fabric (Monte-Mór, 2000).

There are thirty-one metropolitan regions (MRs) and Integrated Development Regions

(RIDE) in Brazil. During the 1970s the Federal government institutionalized nine MRs and

the remaining was created in the 1990s through initiatives of state governments.

1 Between 1940 and 2000, Brazil‘s growth population increased 312 percent, while the urban population grew

by 971 percent (Gouvêa, 2005)

2 The least urbanized region, the Northeast, already had 69% of its population living in urban areas, at the year

2000(Rezende and Garson, 2006). The Southeast region was the most highly urbanized — with 90,5% (in 2000)

of the population being classified as urban.

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Figure 1 Metropolitan Regions in Brazil and the first eight institutionalized MRs

(Source:Observatório das Metrópoles)

In fact the institutionalization of metropolitan areas in Brazil in the 1970s, although

authoritarian in its shape, recognized the concept of metropolitan interest and aroused

discussions on services related to urban land use which benefitted its planning and

standardization. (Azevedo and Mares Guia, 2010). This system created an institutional

structure and availability of financial resources that resulted in the implementation of

projects mainly in the areas of sanitation, and urban traffic transport (Azevedo and Mares

Guia, 1999). This period formally worked, the metropolitan institutions produced master

plans for the municipalities located in the peripheral area of the metropolises. Despite a top-

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down model and governance with authoritarian traits, but due to a great amount of financial

resources, as the Metropolitan Developing Funds3, this model of metropolitan management

admitted distinct institutional forms in each place (Lopes, 2006).

In order to understand metropolitan issues which affect Brazilian metropolises presently and

the metropolitan areas, a research was conducted, not only pointing out the overall problems

and their dynamics in the tripod of social-economic-environmental development interface,

but aims to peel away the layers of management and structure which govern these

metropolitan areas.

This paper draws upon the institutional arrangements and its innovative experiences in the

management of metropolitan areas in Brazil. The next section briefly reviews the process of

Brazilian urbanization and then presents two periods of institutionalization of the

metropolitan areas. The first period, under military rule, a top-down decision, when ―sub-

national levels took no part in the decision‖ (Souza, 2005). The second period, after the

approval of 1988 Constitution, when a decentralized institutional arrangement for

metropolitan areas was under the jurisdiction of the states. The third section describes new

arrangements in metropolitan areas after the 1988 redemocratization period. This section

describes some urban legal framework , after the 1988 Constitution as the Statute of the

City Law, Participatory Budgeting, Public Consortia Law and how some metropolitan areas

presented innovations in practice. The fourth section provides two cases of metropolitan

governance, one of inter-municipal consortia, other as a hybrid model and highlights some

dimensions of their institutional structure. The fifth section offers some concluding remarks.

2 Vertical model in the management of metropolitan areas

2.1 Background – urbanization in Brazil

The process of urbanization in Brazil had its growth from 1930s when – in the simplified

perspective of ―late industrialization" – economic policy founded on industrialization grounds

attracted contingents of rural population for better living conditions in the cities. As Souza

(2005) points out Brazilian urbanization grew extremely fast and in the 1970s the country

3 For financing purposes, the Urban Development Trust was created, prioritizing municipalities that accepted

closer collaboration with federal and state government initiatives.

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became more urban than rural. The author presents how urbanization growth rates evolved: in

1940, 31.2% of the population lived in urban areas4, in 1960, 45%, in 1970, 55.9%, in 1991,

75.5% and in 2000, 81%.

In the period between the 1940s and 80s, interventionism has expanded continuously in

Brazil, with the State operating as a regulator of the economic system and as a direct investor,

primarily in the industrial sector (Gouvêa, 2005).

2.2 Institutionalization of metropolitan areas: first period

Under the military regime in Brazil (1964-1985), metropolitan management was imposed to

municipalities, structured in a centralized basis. Although metropolitan regions had legally

come to existence through the Constitution of 1967, after seven years, a federal law issued in

1973(amendment n.14/73), defined eight5 Metropolitan Regions (MRs) and their constituent

municipalities, and in 1974 one more6 MR was included. Amendment 14 dealt with these

metropolitan regions homogeneously by enforcing compulsory participation of

municipalities in metropolitan management, with the intent to services of common interests,

which would not take in their regional specificities and needs. It gave priority to the use of

central and state funds, including loans, to municipalities that participated in integrated

projects and services (Rezende and Garson, 2006), and a significant flow of resources was

mobilized especially for the housing and urban development sectors(Klink,2008). For the

military regime, these regions have played a key role in consolidating the country's

development and most of them were composed of state capitals in which the first outbreak

of industrialization occurred.

In that same Law the establishment of two agencies for each MR were designated: a

Deliberative Council and an Advisory Council as decision-making forums for metropolitan

problems, determining the form and content of these representative bodies, and defining its

powers as separate management bodies of the metropolitan areas. The competencies of the

Deliberative and Advisory Councils of each metropolitan area was related to the services,

common to all municipalities involved, being the Deliberative Council responsible for

coordinating and implementing these services, and the Advisory Council responsible for

4 At that time Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo had a population of more than one million each.

5 The eight metropolitan regions institutionalized in 1973 were: Belém, Fortaleza, Recife, Salvador, Belo

Horizonte, São Paulo, Curitiba and Porto Alegre. 6 Metropolitan region of Rio de Janeiro (Amendment n.20/74).

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orientation by means of suggestions. The services of metropolitan interest were: social

development, sanitation, metropolitan land use, production and distribution of canalized gas;

use of water resources and pollution control and others which could be included as a

competence of the Deliberative Council by federal law.

As to the structure of management of the metropolitan areas in this period, the definition of

the Deliberative Council itself is not very clear as a metropolitan entity, which manages the

common interests of all the municipalities involved. The decisions of the Deliberative

Council should bind the municipal plans on behalf of metropolitan interest. This Council was

composed of five members, which three were nominated by the state governor, one by the

mayor of the state capital and only one representing all the other mayors. The Advisory

Council members were composed by all the mayors of the metropolitan municipalities, but

with no decision power.

As to the increasing authoritarian feature of metropolitan agencies in that period, Souza

(2005) describes it when ―virtually all state governors, mayors of the state capitals and

mayors of municipalities belonging to MRs were unelected‖. As the federal government

established the areas which would be considered in the institutionalization of the MRs, these

areas would have preference in obtaining federal and state resources to its municipalities.

For Rezende and Garson (2006) this system of metropolitan administration was seriously

weakened as to

the difficulty in developing projects adapted to specific regional demands, the lack of a forum for

the municipal constituents to discuss their demands, and the political and economic crisis at the

turn of the seventies (Rezende and Garson, 2006).

A political crisis permeated the military regime, ―the focus on planning was lost, and the

funds for urban areas became increasingly scarce‖ (Rezende and Garson, 2006). Faced with

external and internal crises, the economic growth of the early 1970s faltered in the 1980s, to a

decade of stagnation ( Moraes and Cidade, 2010). Rezende and Garson (2006) describe this

period when

Brazil suffered through a series of plans to stabilize the economy, in an attempt to bring the

macroeconomic situation under control. Between the periodic crises, episodic inflation sometimes

raced out of control, eroding not only the currency and the ability to plan, but also rendering the

budgetary instruments useless.

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A conclusion can be drawn from this first period of institutionalization, that this model of

metropolitan governance lacks a crucial element: creation of incentives for cooperation

between the state and its municipalities or among bordering municipalities (Souza, 2005).

A second period would start, with open elections in 1982, and a new process of

―redemocratization‖ 7 (Moraes and Cidade, 2010) when the Constitution of 1988 was drawn.

This period would define an institutional basis for dealing with the metropolitan regions

(Rezende and Garson, 2006).

2.3 Institutionalization of metropolitan areas: second period

The Constitution of 1988 represented a definite impact towards decentralization into

political, administrative and financial terms. A retraction of the federal government on

metropolitan issues occurred and metropolitan management was, under the Constitution, by

amendment, within the competence of the state governments. The states had the right to

―establish metropolitan regions in order to integrate the organization, planning and operation

of public functions of common interest of the states and their respective municipalities‖

(Rezende and Garson, 2006).

A new balance among the three governing entities, federal, state and municipal, contributed

to the emergence of more individualized decisions, with greater decision–making autonomy

to states and local governments (Moraes and Cidade, 2010). The new arrangement of the

Constitution is that the status of the municipalities in the Brazilian federation was equal to the

federal and state entities and it ―has granted, in relative terms, more financial resources to the

municipalities than to the states‖ (Souza, 2005). A more intense pace in the creation of

municipalities was achieved. Between 1988 and 2000, 1438 new municipalities were

generated – 25% of all municipalities in Brazil (Tomio, 2005), out of 5506 existing

municipalities, in the year 2000.

The strengthening of the municipal autonomy had, in one hand, weakened the position of the

state governments related to metropolitan management. Klink (2008) observes that

the transition to redemocratization in Brazil, have resulted in a federal system of relatively

independent and fragmented local governments with few built-in mechanisms for intermunicipal

and intergovernmental cooperation.

7 The word ‗redemocratization‘ has been chosen by Souza (1996), because the struggle of Brazilian society against military

rule focused on a return to the democracy which had existed between 1946 and 1964.

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In the 1990s, due to the compartmentalized and competitive nature of the Brazilian

federation, local and state governments facilitated competitive bidding wars (Klink, 2008) the

so called ‗fiscal war‘. Also known as ‗war of places‘ it consisted on the development of

neoliberal policies at the states level, in order to attract international investment, when a

number of Brazilian states offered tax exemptions for the implementation of industries.

These competitive and aggressive policies and dispute among the states led to spatial changes

in the municipalities where new plants were established, or just moved to another state, and

had implications on the territorial configuration of various regions (Moraes and Cidade,

2010).This policy has been implemented for nearly 20 years, has no national coordination

and increases more the present regional inequalities.

With the 1988 Constitution there was a tendency that municipalities would incline towards a

horizontal institutional model approach. That would refer to the association of local

governments as to the organization of metropolitan management. In the 1988 Constitution

there are provisions for associated management of public services and the constitution of

public consortia with that aim (Pires, 2010).

Table 1 shows the first eight metropolitan areas institutionalized in 1973, number of their

constituent municipalities in the year of their creation, and the number of municipalities after

1988. It includes the name of the management institution and the year which these

institutions officially started. The percentage of population concentrated in each central

municipality of the MR in 2007 and managing metropolitan agency, presents aspects of each

metropolitan region.

Table 1- Institutional arrangements of the first eight MRs

Metropolitan

Region(MR)

Number of

constituent

municipaliti

es in 1973

Number of

constituent

municipaliti

es

after

the1988

Constitution

Percentage

of the MR

population

in the central

municipality

(2007)

-Managing

metropolitan

agency

-Year of

creation/modificat

ion/ending

-new agency

Metropolitan institutional

management agencies,

municipalities agencies

and innovations

São Paulo 37 39 55,99%

Emplasa(Paulista

Metropolitan Planning

Company SA)

1974-1988

1989-1994-2005

Deliberative Council of

Greater São Paulo

(CODEGRAN ),

Greater São Paulo

Metropolitan Consultative

Council for Integrated

Development

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(CONSULTI), Paulista

Metropolitan Planning

Company SA

(EMPLASA), linked

to the Economy and

Planning Secretariat of the

State of São Paulo, and

Development Council, of a

normative and deliberative

nature.

Belo

Horizonte

14

35

48,24% Planbel

-PLAMBEL

Superintendencia da

Região Metropolitana

de Belo Horizonte

(Planning Authority of

the Metropolitan

Region of Belo

Horizonte)

1971/1974/1995

-AMBEL

(Metropolitan

Assembly of Belo

Horizonte) 1996

Metropolitan Development

Deliberative Council,

Metropolitan Development

Agency, Metropolitan

Development Fund, State

Secretariat of Regional

Development and Urban

Policy,Metropolitan

Governance Group,

RMBH Metropolitan

Forum, Association of

RMBH Municipalities and

Mineiro Forum for Urban

Reform

Porto Alegre 14 31 35,14%

Institutionalization

(mid 1960s- 12

municipalities)

METROPLAN(1975-

1989-1995)

Association of

Municipalities of Greater

Porto Alegre(GRANPAL)

1985.

State Foundation for

Metropolitan and Regional

Planning

(METROPLAN),a

technical support entity of

the RMPA Deliberative

Council. Participatory

Budget(1989)

Recife 9 14

41,55%

CONDERM(1974)

Conselho de

Desenvolvimento da

Região Metropolitana

do Recife

1994- new

CONDERM

Metropolitan Management

System (SGM), which

includes the Metropolitan

Region of Recife‘s

Development

Council(CONDERM), a

deliberative and

consultative body; the

Metropolitan Region of

Recife‘s

Development Foundation

(FIDEM), an executive

secretariat for technical

support; and the

Metropolitan

Region of Recife‘s

Development

Fund(FUNDERM).

Salvador 8 13 79,63%

Conder(1967-1974-

1988-1992)

Conder(1992-

subordinated to the

Bahia State Urban

Development Company

(CONDER )

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state)

Curitiba 14 25 54,84%

COMEC -Curitiba

Metropolitan Region

Coordination Agency

From 1998 relevancy

on environmental

issues

Curitiba Metropolitan

Region Coordination

Agency(COMEC),

Consultative and

Deliberative Councils,

Municipal Secretariat

(Curitiba) for Metropolitan

Issues(SMAM), RMC

Association of

Municipalities (ASOMEC)

Belém 2 5 68,44% N/D Metropolitan Council,

which contains a General

Secretary, and the

Metropolitan Region of

Belém Development Fund

Fortaleza 5 13

N/D

1975

1999

Consultative and

Deliberative Councils,

Development

Fund,Sectorial Technical

Chambers

(Source: adapted from Rocha and Faria,2010, Klink, 2008 and other Observatorio das Metropoles

sources)

In fact, Table 1 summarizes many of the aspects already presented in the previous sections of

this paper. The creation of new municipalities in the country after 1988 is evidenced by the

increase in number of municipalities after that period in many MRs, although there was an

increase of the territorial area, part of a MR as well. All the eight metropolises in Table 1

were state capitals at the 1970s and continue to be. Five of them concentrate more than 50 per

cent of the population in the central municipality, the city of Salvador, state of Bahia, located

in the northeast Brazilian macro-region outstands with almost 80 per cent of the population of

Salvador Metropolitan Region. In 1980 Salvador Metropolitan Region had a population of

1.8 million, and 1.5 million in the state capital. In 2000, a little more than 3 million, and close

to 80 per cent living in the city of Salvador.

The metropolises of São Paulo, Belo Horizonte, Porto Alegre and Salvador had their own

institutionalization, with an original structure, before the federal 1973 Amendment, which

70,76%

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practically uniformized the MRs, conceived as strategic areas of political and economic

control by the government.

The metropolitan regions of Belo Horizonte , Recife and Belem have their own Metropolitan

Fund, being created after the 1988 Constitution.

3. New arrangements in Brazil’s redemocratization period

3.1 Participatory Budgeting

What has become known as ‗participatory budgeting‘ , hereinafter called PB, in Brazil

stems from an initiative taken by local governments which began in 1989 with the metropolis

of Porto Alegre. Although a ‗top-down‘ governmental initiative, it is decided locally and

organized in different local formats. The main objective of PB is to put members of the local

community together to participate in the budget writing process and to decide on the

allocation of a given amount of resources, generally destined for infrastructure in poor areas

(Souza, 2005). This process of conjoint decision, through local community representatives

and local governments actually decide on the final allocation of public investment in their

cities on a yearly basis.

The model of Porto Alegre, the best and longest known example of participatory budgeting

practice has inspired other models in Brazil. For example, in Recife civil society participation

in PB has begun since 2001.In meetings and by internet, during the whole year, citizens

suggest measures for the city and follow them during their implementation. Priorities are

defined in 15 areas, as culture, education and youth. Residents decide the priority in their

neighborhoods: to pave a street, open a health center or social housing.

In Belo Horizonte since 1993, areas such as infrastructure, health, sport, education, culture,

housing, welfare, sanitation and environment are included in PB. A voting system has been

created to be used with a toll-free number and internet. It articulates with a municipal

program for digital inclusion and has 270 public points for voting in several places in the city

with 800 trained monitors. Inspection of construction works already approved by the PB

opens to civil society representatives the right to inspect and charge from the local

government actions of the PB.

Angeles(2010) in her research from other authors points out that participatory budgeting is

successfully practiced in 250 cities and municipalities around the world, which includes 130

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Brazilian cities that adopted various versions, data of 2004. This practice, the author

continues,

has positive benefits for favela8 residents in terms of providing better public goods and

services, improving the quality of governance and public participation, creating vehicles for

citizen education, bringing improvements in vital infrastructure and services to poor

communities, minimizing corruption, and fostering an open ended civic discourse among the

urban poor (Angeles, 2010).

PB is not established by decree and there is no law that institutionalizes its operational

frameworks and channels of citizen participation. The process has been systematized in terms

of its institutional framework, cycle and discussion methods by many local and state

governments in Brazil.

3.2 Statute of the City

The 1988 Constitution gave prerogative to the state members to establish Metropolitan

Regions and create laws of organization of those MRs that would come to be

institutionalized. The Constitution, regarded as a pro-municipality enactment, opened up new

possibilities for metropolitan arrangements. As the municipalities had the same political

status as the states and federal government , as entities, there was no interest for this

municipalities to create metropolitan management based on cooperation, on an horizontal

model.

The autonomy of municipalities combined with globalization and neoliberal forces in the

1980s and 1990s, cities in general in Brazil suffered from lack of coordination towards local

land use management and master planning.

There was hardly any coordination and exchange of information among cities regarding the

elaboration of their master plans; in practice, the municipalities of the metropolitan regions have a

kaleidoscope of disconnected local plans(Klink, 2010).

The Statute of the City legislation empowers local governments to resolve issues of local

land use, land dispute, squatter settlements and land speculation; elaboration of masters plans

with more leverage over private land markets through such instruments as progressive

property taxes, development fees and inclusionary zoning clauses (Klink, 2010).

8 Shanty towns and slums in Brazil.

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Created in 2001, this Law has a general guide for urban issues, tools for urban politics and

democratic management for the city, but does not address metropolitan and regional issues in

details. There are some references in the Statute of the City towards metropolitan regions:in

chapter tools of Urban Policies, the Law refers to planning of metropolitan regions, it also

refers to master plan (plano diretor) being obligatory to municipalities which are part of

metropolitan regions. In chapter referring to Democratic Management, it says that the

management agencies of metropolitan regions an urban agglomerations, will obligatory

include a significant participation of the population and representative associations of the

diverse segments of the community, so as to guarantee the direct control of their activities

and the practice of citizenship.

According to Denaldi et al (2010) there is still a difficulty in planning the elaboration and

revision of urban master plans with regional-level strategies. The authors affirm that

In practice, local managers were not only faced with enormous challenges in applying the new

mechanisms of the City Statute Law toward social and spatial inclusion, largely due to the historic

strength of real estate capital in Brazilian cities, but they also failed to mobilize themselves to

discuss and address these challenges at the metropolitan level(Denaldi et al, 2010).

3.3 Public Consortia Law

The Public Consortia Law was regulated by the federal government in 2005 and it addresses

the legal precariousness of existing consortia, up to that point governed by private law.

Before the law was passed, consortia were not able to take on legal obligations or carry out

inspections, make regulations or engage in planning activities (Dias, 2006 apud Denaldi et al,

2010).

Regarding some aspects of public consortia Angeles(2010) explains that as

a form of inter-jurisdictional cooperation, public consortia can operate horizontally (between

local governments or other local public agencies within a region), or vertically (between

hierarchical levels of government). The emphasis on the public nature of consortia suggest

little role for the private sector, thus consortia are different from public private partnerships,

in which the private sector performs a service, builds or operates a facility, etc., for one or

more public government body(Angeles, 2010).

The approach of this law seeks the participation and involvement of local actors, a state

protagonism reflected in a series of initiatives in many Brazilian states, such as Minas Gerais,

Pernambuco, Rio Grande do Norte and Paraná, among others.

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A linkage between participatory budgeting practice and Public Consortia Law is provided by

Angeles(2010) as to new forms of governance related to social inequalities.

What is certain is that there is still little analysis of how the Public Consortia Law may

capitalize on Brazilian cities‘ experiences with participatory budgeting and solidarity

economy to create public consortia between municipalities and other levels of government in

order to promote more effective and collaborative forms of regional governance to address

urban poverty, social exclusion and social inequality(Angeles, 2010).

4.Horizontal and hybrid models: the ABC consortium and Belo Horizonte Metropolitan

Region

During the mid-1990s, new arrangements in the management of metropolitan regions in

Brazil began to arise. With the end of the military regime and the ‗neo-local‘ perspective that

dominated shortly after 1988, the policy arena was revitalized with both the emergence of

new actors and the re-definitions of roles played by classical actors (Azevedo and Mares

Guia, 2010).

The innovative aspect of the involvement of representatives of civil society marked this new

phase which

combined different forms of compulsory associations, such as river basin management

committees and covering several cities including those within metropolitan boundaries,

various forms of voluntary associative models. This marked the birth of consortia among

municipalities as a means to jointly address or manage specific issues related to

transportation, sanitation and environmental protection, among others.

The horizontal model presented above or inter-municipal consortia is represented by the

ABC region consortium , created in 1998, much before the Public Consortia Law.

Another metropolitan management model , occurs in Belo Horizonte Metropolitan Region,

which defines an hybrid governance model sustained on vertical and horizontal mechanisms

of a democratic governance, having created its institutional arrangements in 2006.

These two models are under pressure from transformations of the urbanized spaces as a result

of forces of globalization and reorganization of the productive economic structure tending to

fragmentation. Each responds differently towards the challenges of new territorial and

competitive role of metropolitan areas.

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4.1 The ABC regional consortium

The ABC consortium, was created in the 1990s by the initiative of seven municipalities9

inserted in the city of São Paulo southern fringe. This area, an urbanized region bordering the

metropolis of São Paulo, concentrated the bulk of industrial investment during the period of

Brazilian import substitution, including motor vehicle industry and during the 1970s could be

considered as Brazil‘s industrial heartland .With combination of trade liberalization and

deregulation, without compensating industrial and technological policies , and not benefiting

from the regime of protected market policies, the result was a crisis which led to

unemployment, poverty, deteriorated quality of living and the incapacity of the institutional

structures to face the challenges of the city region(Klink, 2008).

The Consortium started with an interest on the management of water resources, its ground

zero being in 1990, when the Intermunicipal Watershed Consortium of Alto Tamanduateí

and Bilings was founded (Machado 2009).The area of these seven municipalities is located

near to important reservoirs that supply water for Greater São Paulo region. These

municipalities have common identities based on a historic, economic and political elements

(Klink, 2008). The Consortium expanded its interests towards socio-economic issues for the

development of the region.

It is important to note as the ABC Consortium region is part of São Paulo Metropolitan

Region, which for its turn comes from a vertical top-down management imposed in the

1970s, so the Consortium is part of a larger agglomeration composed of 39 municipalities.

When the state of São Paulo, established in 1994 its metropolitan management, the state

created a development council with an equal composition between state and municipalities.

The ABC Region has had one of the longest-run consortiums under the old legal framework.

Basically the ABC Consortium – a network partnership, an association of these seven

municipalities – is structured on an administrative organization formed by a Municipal

Council, Audit Council, Consultive Council and Executive Secretariat. The presidency of the

Consortium is rotating and held by one of the mayors among the seven municipalities, elected

among its peers, for a one-year term. The involvement of civil society was consolidated in

1994, with the Citizen Forum of Greater ABC which led to the Greater ABC Chamber, in

1997, an intergovernmental and social planning forum which elaborates and implements

9 The Consortium comprises the municipalities of Santo André, São Bernardo do Campo, São Caetano do

Sul,Rio Grande da Serra , Diadema,Mauá and Ribeirão Pires.The area is known as ABC, after three of its towns‘

initials.

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public policies as well. In 1998 a regional chamber, Greater ABC Chamber and a regional

development agency, Greater ABC Development Agency led to collaborative arrangements,

as regional articulation and integration between different stakeholders which, according to

Klink(2010) facilitated regional strategic planning, and also triggered limited but focused

investments in infrastructure and economic development.

4.2 Belo Horizonte Metropolitan Region - RMBH

The state of Minas Gerais, which the city of Belo Horizonte is the state capital, defined the

metropolitan issue as a priority before the institutionalization of the RMBH as a metropolitan

region by the military regime in 1973. With a specific working team the state government

defined the development of a Metropolitan Plan for Belo Horizonte in charge of the

metropolitan management agency PLAMBEL, Planning Authority of the Metropolitan

Region of Belo Horizonte.

As shown in previous sections of this article

In practice, both the federal and the state governments stepped away from metropolitan

management, leaving the issues related to public functions of common interest to the sovereign

municipalities and hoping that they could implement collaborative solutions. However, larger

municipalities were unwilling to subsidize poorer municipalities and increasingly withdrew from

the process. As a result, the metropolitan management system fell apart (Pires, 2010).

That is the case which occurred to Belo Horizonte as many other Brazilian metropolises.

State efforts to improve metropolitan management were done during the 1990s as to the need

to ‗position the metropolitan region more effectively on the regional, national and

international scenes‘(Pires, 2010). As to the hegemony of municipalist ideology at all costs –

more power to the municipalities and less to the state and big core-cities – it also permeated

the RMBH.

In 2003, with changes in political elections for state governor and in 2004 for mayor of the

city of Belo Horizonte, an administrative reform was made the state level with the support of

the local level (Machado, 2009). The increase of social and infra-structure problems resulted

from the institutional disarticulation of RMBH was an important factor to legitimate , from

2003 on, the return of state participation in metropolitan governance(Pires, 2010).

18

Some landmarks started in 2003 as to the creation of the State Secretariat for Regional

Development and Urban Policy (SEDRU). In November of the same year, the Legislative

Assembly of the State of Minas Gerais (ALMG) hosted a seminar to provide an opportunity

for metropolitan governmental and non-governmental groups to participate in the debate

about alternatives for better management of Metropolitan Regions in Minas Gerais (Pires,

2010). The State Constitution adopted a hybrid institutional model, which mixed a top-down

approach, i.e., the organization of the metropolitan region by the state, independently of the

municipalities, with a ‗concerted approach‘ (concertação) to decision making(Pires, 2008).

The institutional structure for two metropolitan regions, RMBH and Vale do Aço, in the state

of Minas Gerais consists of a Metropolitan Development Deliberative Council – with

participation of representatives of civil society – the so-called democratic management.

Metropolitan Development Agency and Metropolitan Development Fund in 2006, State

Secretariat of Regional Development and Urban Policy. The RMBH has as well:

Metropolitan Governance Group, RMBH Metropolitan Forum and Association of RMBH

Municipalities .There is also present a more complex management structure which is the

Metropolitan Assembly of the Metropolitan Region of Belo Horizonte (AMBEL) inspired by

the Paris metropolitan parliament.

The choice of this hybrid model, with vertical and horizontal dimensions in its structure,

Pires(2010) explain that it follows global tendencies and derives from the concepts of cross-

sectoral interaction and discussion (consensus-based administration), a new trend in the

academic studies of state management(Pires, 2010).

According to Machado (2009) two elements are important to mention which compose the

RMBH and differently than the ABC Consortium. First, concerning the interest of the 34

municipalities which compose the RMBH, is very heterogeneous in economic and

demographic terms. Three municipalities, Belo Horizonte, Contagem and Betim, concentrate,

87% of the IGP of all the MR. The other municipalities have diverse economic profiles. The

ABC Consortium municipalities are part of the same watershed. The RMBH has three

environmental distinct complexes based on physical-economic-geographic parameters.

Besides, the ABC region is part of São Paulo Metropolitan Region, while Belo Horizonte

polarizes the region.

19

5.Conclusions

The first period of institutionalization of the metropolitan regions in Brazil had a top-

down management, imposed by the federal government , but with funding for planning and

its execution in a uniformized model. There was little or no participation of local actors in the

decision-making process.

Since the new Constitution approval in 1988, a retraction of the federal government on

metropolitan issues occurred, passing to the states competences, the result being an

institutional vacuum when a municipalist ideology also reigned. The funding ceased and new

governance experiences began to take shape.

New arrangements surged in Brazil‘s redemocratization period and three were presented:

Participatory Budgeting, Statute of the City and Public Consortia Law which open

arrangements that include regional considerations, cooperative and participative management

and continuity in implementation of actions. There is not a domination of the government in

the decision making process but an articulation between the different tiers.

In this sense, different solutions and management ‗models‘ coexist in Brazilian metropolitan

regions for planning and executing common public interests: inter-municipal consortia and a

hybrid governance management, as case examples of the ABC Region Consortium and the

Metropolitan Region of Belo Horizonte. The former initially focused on the management of

water resources and have a common identity and purposes comprising seven municipalities.

The latter, has a management from the state administration, 34 municipalities and diversified

interests. Both models try to build consensus, on a democratic and participative management,

but many elements put pressure on this governance. Both governance models put their action

towards economic and social development, bringing new actors to the urban decision-making

arena, despite the many urban issues that for decades has been dramatically increasing in

Brazil as mentioned in this introduction section.

There are many questions on how to shape metropolitan governance: should federal state be

more present in regulation and legislation of urban issues, should there be institutionalization

of the metropolitan regions, how can vertical and horizontal methods of governance coexist

in the management of MRs? How to strength participation and cooperation in these same

methods of governance?Of course there is no better governance management model,

experiences have to be examined and evaluated , in a continuous dynamics, creating new

possibilities and arrangements for a more just and collaborative governance.

20

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Universidade de Brasilia, Decanato de Pesquisa e Pós-graduação(DPP)

for partially funding my trip to the 3rd

World Planning Schools Congress in Perth, Australia. I

am grateful to my advisor in the PhD program at Universidade de Brasilia, Prof. Dr. Lucia

Cony F. Cidade, for mostly encouraging me in my thesis project and her valuable

observations for this paper.

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