ancient cities

abstracted from the real problems of other Brazilian
regions. However, oppositional groups formed
despite censorship and persecution. The process
toward democracy turned Brasília into a center for
many political manifestations. The military regime
finally lost its power after 1984.
With time, Brasília became less a dream and
more of a real city with a variety of social and
urban issues. Researchers noticed that social life
had disappeared in its residential areas, which
were separated from commercial areas, while
parks were lacking trees, and pedestrians found it
difficult to walk—especially because of the hot
weather, the distance between buildings, and the
primacy given to cars. Different linguistic, cultural,
and social patterns became stratified, thus creating
a social structure that was supposed to have been
overcome by modernist urban planning.
City Life
Brasília, was planned as something unique, representing
the eruption of a new “modern” time and
space disconnected from older events. In its modernity,
Brasília was supposed to mark a definitive break
from previous historical moments in Brazil and Latin
America. However, it remained embedded in the
political climate of the region. It became a symbol of
totalitarianism during the times of militarism in Latin
America, and then a center for democratic activity as
different groups used its open spaces for public demonstrations
and their struggle for democracy.
New public and democratic initiatives shaped
Brasília at the end of the twentieth century. The
central city spaces were used by both activist groups,
such as the Central Worker’s Union and the
Landless Movement in their efforts toward better
wages and agrarian reform, and traditional lobbyists,
such as the Union of Rural Landowners.
Traditional, conservative, progressive, and postmodern
religious groups gained more visibility,
including not only the Liberation Theology movement,
but also the Charismatic Movement within
the Catholic Church, the powerful political coalition
of Evangelicals, as well as New Age groups that
chose Brasília as their center. Moreover, with these
changes an active underground city life emerged.
Women’s groups, workers, students, and environmental
activists, as well as young artists, musicians,
and followers of new religions began to use public
spaces and urban niches for their expressions.
Broadacre City
83
These groups also shaped Brazilian democracy,
bringing people from the periphery to the center
stage of national politics. With the founding of the
Worker’s Party in 1980, a new movement in Brazilian
politics was inaugurated, which reached its peak
with the election of Luis Inácio “Lula” da Silva as
president in 2002, thus bringing to Brasília a former
steelworker to occupy the center of political power.
Brasília in the Twenty-First Century
Brasília was originally seen as establishing a new
time and space in Latin America. It became a symbol
of modern architecture, urban planning, radicalized
centralism, and militarism. Then, with
democracy, alternative cultures and forms of living
began to emerge and change the urban landscape.
Thus, in the twenty-first century Brasília looks
more like a real city, more diverse and less centralized,
still a symbol of modernism, but now conscious
of its internal tensions.
Amos Nascimento
See also Le Corbusier; São Paulo, Brazil; Urban Planning
Further Readings
El-Dahdah, Farès, ed. 2005. Lucio Costa: Brasília’s
Superquadra. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University
Graduate School of Design.
Epstein, David. 1973. Brasília, Plan and Reality: A Study
of Planned and Spontaneous Urban Development.
Berkeley: University of California Press.
Holston, James. 1989. The Modernist City: An
Anthropological Critique of Brasília. Chicago:
University of Chicago Press.
Paviani, Aldo. 1996. Brasília: Moradia e exclusão
(Brasília: Living Condition and Social Exclusion).
Brasília, Brazil: Editora UNB.
Telles, Edward. 1995. “Structural Sources of Socioeconomic
Segregation in Brazilian Methopolitan Areas.” American
Journal of Sociology 100(5): 1199–1223.
Br o a d a c r e ci t y
In April 1935, at an industrial arts exposition held
in Rockefeller Center, New York City, Frank
Lloyd Wright unveiled a detailed scale model of