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This article aims to contribute to the discussion on the publicness of public spaces by focusing on the uses of free access areas in urban mobility infrastructures such as subway stations, especially those uses not associated with mobility, transit and passenger flow – I call them 'non-transit uses'. I also focus specifically on people at the station whose behaviour differs from a 'typical passenger'. Instead of entering the station and heading to platforms, the ones I call 'non-passengers' do not ride the subway, do not arrive there by subway and remain at the station for long periods. To study the uses of space, I suggest an investigation framework that allows a focus on how these free access areas and their publicness are a product of these specific uses. The paper is based on Lefebvre's dialectic assumption on space, particularly his analytical triad of 'perceived', 'conceived' and 'lived' spaces, and Frehse's specific definition of uses (patterns of bodily behaviour and social interactions). I then investigate what the non-transit uses of non-passengers can reveal about the Sé subway station in downtown São Paulo by studying them in every aspect of Lefebvre's triad, thus revealing conceived, perceived and lived uses of the station. Finally, I conclude that the 'non-passengers' use the station in similar ways to a public square and that the 'publicness' of this station lies in the relation of its non-transit uses with the Sé square placed above the station. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents an innovative comparison that works creatively with the entangled spatialities of policy mobilities, drawing on a city-to-city cooperation between São Paulo (Brazil) and eThekwini (South Africa) municipalities for the exchange of slum upgrading expertise. The proposed comparative tactic entails tracing the establishment of this connection in order to disassemble the constituent flows and localities merged within it. Subsequently, by posing questions to one another, a relational comparison of the trajectory of slum upgrading policy in each locality is composed, unearthing the political and institutional conditions that preceded the existence of the connection per se. In that sense, both eThekwini and São Paulo are considered equivalent starting points from which local actors engaged in circulating ideas and mobilised slum upgrading policies. This paper not only brings a fresh approach to comparative methods – incorporating political contexts and their extensive overlapping networks of relations alongside a focus on particular policy trajectories – but also contributes to furthering global urban studies in two other ways. First, it provides insight into the processes by which policies are put on the move and localised (or not). Second, it demonstrates how repeated instances of urban practice may be unravelled by allowing each context of policy formation, with its distinctive trajectory of slum upgrading, to speak to one another. In this regard, the comparative analysis identified how, in both São Paulo and eThekwini, the consolidation of democracy was followed by the development of more technocratic approaches to the detriment of earlier slum upgrading initiatives focussed on community empowerment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The literature on urban financialisation has prioritised the analysis of what finance does in the context of industrialised countries. This paper contributes to an understanding of what it is, and specifically how it emerges from the entanglements between the accumulation of intergovernmental debt, pricing and valuation practices – involving state and municipal utilities, regulatory agencies and consultancies – in the gradual transformation of shared into shareholder water governance in Brazilian metropolitan areas. Moreover, we provide a first illustration of how a more articulate approach between political economics and social studies of finance might contribute to an understanding of the making of urban financialisation, with a particular relevance for a context of less developed capital markets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the past decades, when São Paulo became the national manufacturing centre, it has experienced great population growth. Since then, many housing problems have emerged. In addition, the difficulties that inner cities face in attracting jobs and maintaining economic activities are particularly challenging. Indeed, even if many cities have successfully regenerated their central areas, the so-called inner city problem is still very much alive in the case of São Paulo. As a result although the city centre has abundant urban infrastructure it still has plenty of vacant spaces, including residential buildings. One could say that São Paulo's city centre is characterised by a large number of empty spaces in an area that is simultaneously crowded with buildings and urban facilities. This paper intends to contribute to the empirical analysis of the determinants of vacancy rates, with a particular focus on historical city centres, using São Paulo Metropolitan Area as our case study. Our empirical analysis relies on district-level data for the years 2000 and 2010, and combines standard spatial econometric methods with hedonic modelling. Our results suggest that there are three main groups of determinants: individual buildings characteristics, mobility of households and neighbourhood quality. We find evidence that the historic central city is a distinctive submarket, needing special urban policies. Its determinants work differently when compared with the housing markets of other areas across the city. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]