Through the bridges: the Black Cultural Association in São Paulo, urban planning and the contours of the white city

Abstract

ABSTRACT In São Paulo, the presence of the Black population in urban space is not reflected in official data. However, urban plans and projects had a great impact on this group since the birth of urbanism. The city growth process throughout the twentieth century operated a silent removal of Blacks from neighbourhoods around the historical centre related to social and economic factors, without being reported or discussed. This removal was widely supported by the scarcity of official data on their location and characterisation. Segregation contributed to increasing the distance from their homes to the centre, perpetuating the difficulties of social mobility, and reproducing their state of poverty. By retrieving data contained in the archives of the Associação Cultural do Negro (Black Cultural Association), collated with the report on urban planning published by the City Hall in 1961, I will show the displacement of Black people's housing outside the wealthiest central neighbourhoods and its relationship with the urban policy implemented in the period. In the order established by this policy, bridges became elements of connection with the distant neighbourhoods, allowing segregation through the expulsion of Blacks from the most privileged areas, located between the main urban rivers.