Onde está a urbanidade: num bairro central de Berlim ou numa Favela carioca?

Resumo

I propose a discussion about the notion of urbanity based on the counterpoint between daily aspects in the shanty town of Rocinha, in Rio de Janeiro, and the district of Schöneberg, in Berlin. I understand that the comparison between such diverse neighborhoods will contribute to widen up the comprehension possibilities of different types of urbanity, which may be fruitful for the construction but also for the deconstruction of values attributed to that issue. Rocinha has an extreme variety of social and spatial dynamics, whereas Schöneberg, with such clear and well-known public regulations concerning the built space production and the social interactions may reveal a great deal about that issue which is dear and controversial for architects and urban designers. The preliminary aspect of the discussion that I develop leads me into the consideration of the present paper as an essay. Its methodological approach is also experimental: it leads me back to the experience of my field work at Rocinha - based on theoretical references that include Sennet (1998), Gomes (2002) and Elias (1993). In the present methodological procedure I exam the differences between those theories and my living experience as an inhabitant of Schöneberg. Finally, I reinterpret these perceptions based no the notion of urbanity, as proposed by Maffesoli (2007), who drives special attention rather to people's daily practices than to theoretical constructions