In Urban Power, a book under contract with Princeton University Press, Ben provides a comparative-historical analysis of the divergent trajectories of urban public goods distribution in the largest cities in two of the most unequal countries on earth. In Brazil and South Africa, protests over inequality fueled struggles for political democracy. Especially urban inequalities. An alliance of industrial trade unions with neighborhood-based organizations fighting for rights to urban public goods formed the social basis of democratic transition in the 1980s and early 1990s in both countries. As a result, Brazil and South Africa are rare for their constitutional commitments to reduce poverty and inequality. São Paulo has managed to deliver policies that enabled widespread access to improved housing, toilets, and an integrated, more extensive and cheaper system of public transportation. Though Johannesburg had similar policy priorities and was expected to be more successful than São Paulo, it has failed to deliver anything close to these successes. This divergence transforms questions about the relationship between democracy and equality into an empirical puzzle: Why are some cities more effective than others at reducing inequality?
The Harvard Mellon Urban Initiative is supporting the production of a series of maps that show changes in the distribution of housing and sanitation in São Paulo and Johannesburg after each country’s transition to democracy. As a result, this project contributes to a growing interdisciplinary and comparative urban studies, bridging the study of institutions, politics, and urban design.
Researcher: Benjamin Bradlow
 | maps_july142021.pdf | 30.96 MB |