Popular Housing Promoted by the Private Sector: State Financing, Current Laws and Real Estate in São Paulo

In this study, which is the result of a thesis defended in 2020, we evaluate how the market and the state have allied themselves in promoting popular and social interest housing in the city of São Paulo through a set of municipal regulatory frameworks and financing programs from Caixa Econômica Federal, “Caixa”, respectively. The market and the state have adapted and integrated; this association is both politically and economically valuable for the state—despite it having given up on greater urban regulation—and opportune and profitable for the market. This thesis yielded an important result: in 2018, most of the developments launched in the municipality were financed through “Caixa’s” Minha Casa, Minha Vida Program. In other words, the market and the state are allied to address the housing deficit in the municipality, with quantitatively expressed results. We highlight that this formal establishment of private housing, focused on the popular market, was facilitated by not only current municipal laws but also the participation of the state in the federal sphere through funding mechanisms like “Caixa” that have a monopoly on financing this segment. Studying this real estate production, as well as municipal regulatory changes and economics in national terms, enables the creation of an urban space generated through intervention by the state—which acts simultaneously as a regulating and financing agent—and the development of the market as an encouraging and productive agent.