«Cortiços» in Brás: old and new forms of working class housing in industrial São Paulo

Abstract

This study has sought, from a given theoretical standpoint on urban development, to reveal the true course of urbanisation in São Paulo, examining the building and transformation of the city, as manifested in the Brás district. The process of socio-spatial segregation is shown as resulting from the interaction of capital, state and labour in Brazil at the time. Changes in the district reflect different stages in the capitalist process in the country: these processes shape the urban landscape and are represented by different configurations, especially in the case of housing. The oldest form of working class housing in São Paulo, the «cortiço», accommodated the majority of the city' s poverty stricken labouring classes from the beginnings of industrialisation at the end of the XIX century. The typical São Paulo «working class» district - a mix of factories, workshops and low-grade housing - also varied in ethnic and cultural terms, with poor immigrant groups (Italians, Spanish and Negroes) establishing their own territory. The districts of Brás, Bexiga, Barra Funda, Moóca and others have gone down famously in literature. The «cortiço», low-quality rented accommodation, with shared housing and rented rooms, represented in its various forms a considerable part of São Paulo's housing until the 1930s. Even when the pattern of development changed, in the 1940s and 50s, to horizontal expansion, with the appearance of the under-served peripheral districts, the «cortiço» remained an alternative for working class families suffering from different forms of «social exclusion».