500 years in search of urban sustainability

Abstract

This article presents a historical review of the origins of the term sustainable development. It shows that the search for sustainability has always been connected with the several crises of the modes of production of the feudal and capitalist space. The analogies in recent times confirm the condition of social unsustainability of the urban-industrial-capitalist cities, which is shown through the application of Brazil’s City Statute to the municipality of Belo Horizonte. The reason for this is that it benefits the so-called sustainable, privately-owned real estate undertakings, which stimulates the elitization of space. Concrete proposals for socially sustainable urban societies have similarities with the Island of Utopia, from the writings of Thomas More 500 years ago, reaffirming the need to consider the category “space” as a social product, and the power relations over territory within the conceptualization of urban sustainability.