Tiburcio, Tulio, "A Framework for a Director Plan for Small and Medium sized Brazilian Cities"

Cities in Brazil are growing rapidly. At the same time, there is a lack of planning, mainly for small and medium sized cities. Most of them do not have a plan of any kind. The 1988 Constitution requires planning, and cities are now starting to prepare their plans. Environmental issues have received world-wide attention, and have spurred a new interest in the general population for planning at many levels. However the plans done so far have not contributed to the ordering of our cities. Consequently, it is necessary to rethink the context and reconsider the way these plans are being developed in order to make them more effective.

This thesis focuses on the study of the development of a new framework and basic contents for a plan, or a director plan as it is called in Brazil. The scope of this study regards small and medium sized cities. The approach taken is based on Canadian experience and selected Brazilian and Canadian case studies. The criteria used to define an effective plan is its ability to deal with the major problems in the most effective and simple way, which makes a real difference. Taking into consideration the planning situation in the country and the lack of resources, this framework could be seen as a first stage in the process of developing an effective model for a director plan.

The framework results from research into literature on planning issues and from case studies used to identify the aspects and issues that a plan must address. As a test and an example, the proposed framework is applied to the city of Vicosa (Brazil).

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This document was last modified on November 14, 2000.