Abstract This paper is a tribute to São Paulo 1975: crescimento e pobreza (São Paulo 1975: growth and poverty), a fifty-year-old work that is considered a landmark in Brazilian urban studies. Its contribution revealed, in a pioneering way, how economic growth and poverty interact through a dual process of accumulation and urbanization. Adopting a three- -dimensional approach – concept, phenomenon, and processes –, the article interprets the perceptions of poverty present in the work. In addition, it discusses the presence of epistemological obstacles and blind fields with the aim of identifying clues to understand the impoverishment processes that, currently, also drive urbanization in the neoliberal city. Finally, it discusses impoverishment processes that differ from those described in the work, which are characteristic of the industrial era.
Pereira et al. (Wed,) studied this question.