This article analyzes how the diffusion of a pattern of governance centered on a search for a "competitive urbanism" has led the State to abandon some of its traditional management and urban planning functions, transferring these instead, to private actors, which constitutes a growing affirmation of the logic of real estate capital over the structure of cities and the life of their populations. Discussing the recent evolution of three Brazilian capitals, Natal, São Paulo and Salvador, it analyzes the discourses and procedures that are used to justify and legitimate this new pattern of governance, and equally underlines its adverse effects in social, environmental and urban terms.
Metropolis; Real estate capital; Urban development