Manaus fora dos planos: políticas públicas, ocupações e resistências no espaço urbano

Abstract

The accelerated urban growth of Manaus, intensified throughout the twentieth century and the early twenty-first century, has generated profound contradictions between normative urban planning and the socio-spatial reality experienced by the population, particularly in peripheral territories. This dissertation analyzes the historical, legal, and urban development processes that shaped the city of Manaus, emphasizing the ineffectiveness of territorial planning public policies and the recurrent violation of the social function of the city. The study begins with a historical review of urban legislation, ranging from the nineteenth-century Municipal Codes to the current Urban and Environmental Master Plan of Manaus, revealing the persistence of an exclusionary planning model that remains largely insensitive to Amazonian socio-environmental specificities. A qualitative and applied methodological approach is adopted, grounded in socio-spatial analysis of neighborhoods and communities characterized by irregular occupations, infrastructure deficiencies, and socio-environmental vulnerability. The research integrates the analysis of legal provisions, field photographic records, official data, and urban simulations developed with the support of artificial intelligence tools, critically and instrumentally employed as a visual resource to compare the legally planned city with the city effectively produced. The findings demonstrate that, despite normative advances introduced by the City Statute and the 2014 Master Plan, a significant gap persists between legal provisions and the materialization of urban policies. It is concluded that urban expansion in Manaus continues to be marked by state acquiescence, weak enforcement mechanisms, and insufficient structural public policies, contributing to the reproduction of socio-spatial inequalities and the systematic noncompliance with the social function of the city. The dissertation reaffirms the need for urban planning committed to democratic governance, socio-spatial justice, and the Amazonian reality, recognizing that overcoming urban informality requires, beyond normative and technological instruments, political will and effective institutional action.