Democracy and Cities: the Review Experience of the Urban Planning Legislationo Buildings and Land Use and Occupation of Juiz de Fora

Abstract

The present article aims to rescue the revision experience of the urban legislation of buildings
and land use and occupation of the city of Juiz de Fora, occurred in 2013, trying to verify the characteristics of this process, in particular, in popular participation dimension. This analysis is not restricted to the formal scope of the legislative process in the City Council. The constant interaction of this formal process with the various social actors of the city is privileged here. It is worth mentioning the actions of the popular movement MaisJF in the enlargement of the public debate about the proposals of legislative modification and of its possible impacts in the urban space of Juiz de Fora, emphasizing the importance of the social networks in this process and the great projection achieved by the collective during the days of June 2013. The analysis of democracy in this process takes into account the Brazilian political-institutional environment that enshrines popular participation in the planning and management of cities in various norms supported by the Federal Constitution promulgated in 1988. Among these standards stands out, the enshrinement of the principle of cities democratic management in the Statute of the Cities. For the construction of this work, the economic, social and political-institutional characteristics of the city of Juiz de Fora are presented first, and then the review of the legislative process occurred is rescued. This case study was done through the techniques of research of bibliographical revision, documentary analysis, data systematization and interviews.