Uses of the city: symbolic conflicts over the memory and image of a neighbourhood

Abstract

This article examines a symbolic conflict between the users of Praia de Iracema, a neighbourhood in Fortaleza, a city in North-eastern Brazil, taking land use types and practices there as its points of reference. The article shows how the neighbourhood is a peripheral one, involving discourses which acknowledge those, such as local residents and partners in urban development, with conservationist aims. In the context of so-called urban improvement or renewal, different definitions of the use and conservation of urban space emerge. The analysis, which focuses on the characteristics of Praia de Iracema, goes beyond a «case study» by also looking at aspects which help us to think about the experience of urban transformation in other large modern cities.