The expansion of private neighborhoods has been directly related to the historical conditions that led to the deterioration and abandonment of the urban center of Belo Horizonte, between the 1960s and 1970s. In this context, some people had the privilege of choosing the country house of their dreams, attracted by promises of a renewed life, immersed in the paradoxes of development and the social/environmental/political dramas taking place in Brazil during the civil-military dictatorship. Scientists and technicians performed then the first evaluations of urban environmental pollution dilemmas. However, environmental issues seemed untimely, and were a subject far away from politics, underestimated by Brazilian political actors on the Left and on the Right. The decreasing quality of life in Belo Horizonte received individual solutions, sometimes with communal aspects. The simultaneity of these processes in Minas Gerais' capital highlights similar historical circumstances in other Brazilian and Latin American metropolises.
private neighborhoods; Brazilian Economic Miracle; urban pollution; Belo Horizonte; urban environmental history.
