Waters of São Paulo: the reconnection of the city and citizens with their rivers

Abstract

Although the city of São Paulo, Brazil, has an extensive hydrographic network, its urban development, since the beginning of the 20th century until recently, has been performed disregarding the potential and the need for integration with the water in its natural form. In fact, the urbanization exploited the hydric potential of the city and through public works, such as the creation of expressways on the margins of the rivers Pinheiros e Tietê since 1968, has transformed drastically the dimensions, the course and the original flow of the rivers. The city resulting from this process has generated dissatisfaction on several fronts and, as a response to this, both in the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st century, various initiatives emerged to bring together the water, the city and the citizens. With the purpose of highlighting some movements of reconnection between the city and the urban rivers as a manifestation of the subversive citizenship and the struggle for the right to the city, this text contains three parts. First, a succinct theoretical framework. Second, a brief contextualization of the hydrography and the urbanization of São Paulo. Third, a presentation of a series of projects developed with the intention of reconnecting the people and the city with the rivers, organized by field of action, followed by the conclusions.