On May 17th, 2007, the COMPARATIVE URBAN STUDIES PROJECT & THE BRAZIL INSTITUTE cosponsored a conference on urban development in Brazil, focusing on how participatory requirements in Brazil's City Statute has reshaped the way urban policy is formulated. Teresa Caldeira, professor of city and regional planning at the University of California at Berkeley, analyzed the recent trend of requiring citizen participation in urban policy and planning through Brazil's Estatuto da Cidade and São Paulo's Master Plan. Urban policy is significant for Brazil, she contends, because, in the last twenty years, it has been one of the best examples of efforts by Brazilian citizens to use democratic governance to combat entrenched social inequality. In this update, Daniel Nogueira Budny, former program assistant for the Brazil Institute, details Professor Caldeira's presentation at the Wilson Center.

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