ALEXANDRE TAVARESacademic
PTENES
Urban and Regional Planning · UFRGS

City,
housing
& politics.

Critical research on housing, property, public policy and the production of urban space, with an emphasis on Brazil and Latin America.

Research agendaAcademic outputs

Latest publications

A recent selection of publications in journals and scientific events.

2024
Journal publicationHaussmannisation in Brazilian Urban Thought2024 · Revista Multiciência Online · vol. 10, no. 7 · pp. 9–14

Abstract

At the beginning of the 20th century, Brazil entered its most critical process of industrialisation and, along with it, an extraordinary increase in the population concentrated in large urban centres. This concentration has been causing the most diverse social and visual ailments for the urban fabric in question. Even in a dependent country on the world economy, the housing issue, urban sanitation, the necessary “modernisation” for a better European view, became latent problems since the late 19th century and the early 20th century. Through a bibliographic review and data triangulation, it is possible to confirm that urban remodelling was allied to the ruling class as a form of systemic maintenance, against popular revolts and in favour of big capital. The urbanism developed in Brazil is a representation of the European styles of the last century, always remaking the ideas coming from the central countries. This writing aims to reflect on Brazilian urban reforms at the beginning of the 20th century in large metropolises, such as Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo and Porto Alegre, where the main inspiration is Haussmann’s draconian plan in Paris, places where these plans permanently changed the urban landscape of large urban centres, directly affecting the social relations that develop within the city. It is also noted that the lack of originality and development of a national urbanism remains, as do the old urban problems that show no prospect of being remedied in the near future.

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2025
Conference publicationContributions of Marxist Critical Theory to Community Land Trusts2025 · XXI ENANPUR · Realize Editora · pp. 1–23

Abstract

Private property has become established as one of the fundamental dogmas of capitalism, serving as the basis for virtually all Brazilian housing policies. However, the development of these policies expresses other problems and perpetuates the model of exploitation. It is therefore pertinent to seek other ways of dealing with land ownership and the housing question from a counter-hegemonic perspective; in this sense, collective ownership is presented in the form of Community Land Trusts (CLTs). Based on an extensive literature review, a brief description of the CLT model was developed, and the literature was examined through a Marxist perspective in order to clarify and formulate considerations regarding ambiguous points in the literature, elucidating or challenging ideas that persist in scientific production on the subject. Finally, from the critical perspective of Marxist theory, we conclude that collective ownership through CLTs may represent an initial moment of rupture with the capitalist system, but requires broad popular engagement and theoretical clarification in order to be genuinely emancipatory and advance towards a broader struggle.

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Master’s dissertation · 2025

Towards a Critique of Collective Ownership.

HousingCollective ownershipCommunity Land TrustCommunity Land Trust (Brazilian context)Rio Grande do Sul

“Towards a Critique of Collective Ownership: Brazilian housing policy, the question of property and access to housing in Rio Grande do Sul”.

Master’s research developed at PROPUR/UFRGS under the supervision of Inês Martina Lersch, focusing on a critique of the ownership model and the possibilities of collective ownership as a housing and land-policy instrument.

Read on Lume/UFRGS ↗About the research

Research themes

The research develops across four interconnected themes: housing; property and urban land; the state and Marxism; and Latin American urban thought.

01

Housing & housing policy

Housing production and access, public policy, inequality and the housing question from a historical and critical perspective.

02

Property & urban land

Private property, collective ownership, Community Land Trusts and non-commodified forms of access to land and housing.

03

State, Marxism & critical theory

Foundations of planning, Marxist theory, Gramsci, neoliberalism, hegemony and the social production of space.

04

Latin America & urban thought

Circulation of models, urbanisation, urban policy and Latin American experiences of planning and housing.

Selected outputs

Articles and papers on housing, collective ownership, urban planning, housing policy and critical theory.

2025Contributions of Marxist Critical Theory to Community Land Trusts21st ENANPUR · with Inês Martina Lersch2025Outline for a Critique of Collective Property in the Social Dialectic of Porto AlegreDinâmia’cet-Iscte · with Inês Martina Lersch2024Haussmannisation in Brazilian Urban ThoughtRevista Multiciência Online · with Hugues V. Soares2023150 Years of the Housing QuestionGlobal Journal of Human Social Sciences
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Networks & institutions

Participation in groups, laboratories and academic networks connected to research, teaching, outreach and international cooperation.

UFRGSPROPUR

Graduate Programme in Urban and Regional Planning.

UFRGSGEDURB

Urban Studies and Documentation Group.

UFRGSCPLab

City as Project: Teaching, Research and Outreach Laboratory.

TU Berlin · international networkSMUS

Global Center of Spatial Methods for Urban Sustainability.

Profiles & indexing services

Access to CVs, identifiers, repositories and academic indexing platforms.

Linktree↗Lattes↗ORCID↗ResearchGate↗Academia.edu↗EBSCO / Sabi+↗Web of Science↗Google Scholar↗