Qual a cidade que queremos?: a participação popular na elaboração do Fortaleza 2040

Abstract

The theme of this research is popular participation, having as an empirical cut the analysis of the process of elaboration of the strategic plan for urban, economic and social development for Fortaleza, carried out in the years 2014 and 2016. Entitled Fortaleza 2040, the project was an initiative of the administration of the mayor Roberto Cláudio, who intended to include popular participation, public power and the private sector of the city in the elaboration of the strategic plan. The present study has as general objective to understand how the popular participation in the Fortaleza 2040 plan took place, taking as subjects of the research the participants of the project meetings. It is intended to analyze the relationship between civil society and public power in meetings and to understand the role of the population in the elaboration of the final documents produced by Fortaleza 2040. Taking into account the dynamics of Fortaleza 2040, observation, documentary analysis and interviews were used. Observations of the meetings of the Plan were made, which were recorded in a field diary. The documentary analysis consisted of the evaluation of the documents formulated in the course of the plan, published by the City Hall. The interviews were conducted with people who attended the meetings of the plan of the various segments that constituted the drawing up of the plan - population and members linked to public power. The theoretical framework raises questions about the constitution of public spaces in modernity, the construction of narratives about the city and the question of popular participation in planning at the local level. The introduction contextualizes the research and presents the objectives, justification and methodology of the research. The second chapter discusses the institutional development of urban planning at the local level in Fortaleza and its interactions with the macro scope in the period from 1960 to 2018. The third chapter discusses the process of elaboration of the Plan taking into account the agents that participated and the mechanisms and participatory instruments in the elaboration of Fortaleza 2040. The fourth chapter analyzes the dynamics of popular and democratic participation present in Fortaleza 2040 by the vision of the subjects who were inserted in the process. The fifth chapter analyzes the weaknesses of the municipal executive structure to implement public policies of urban planning in parallel to a narrative of Fortaleza 2040 as a modernizing agent of the city's public administration.