Management, politics and urban planning: Analysis of the Natal / RN master plans between 1988 and 2012
Planning and Management, Master Plan, Natal/RN
In order to conceive and implement an urban planning instrument such as the Master Plan, in addition to technical capacity and social participation, it is also necessary to understand how the public machinery works and interpret "The Management", which is basically based on the articulations and negotiations of public managers that considerably impact on the urban planning in cities. Therefore, aiming to understand these actions and effects in a territory such as Natal/RN, the purpose of this research is to trace the recent trajectory of the urban planning of the city, from 1988 to 2012, in the field of politics and management. Thus, it was decided to make this choice to contribute to the diffusion of the recent history of the city's management and territorial planning and, more importantly, to understand the relations with municipal politics, territorial planning and the various meaningful transformations that occurred within this period, as well as contribute to the analyzes related to the current revisions of the Natal Master Plan. In this context, the two master plans for the post-enactment of the Federal Constitution of 1988 – one from 1994 and the other from 2007 – were chosen, in conjunction with the politics and the management and their effects in the urban planning of the city, as the objects of analysis of this research. It is acknowledged that the city of Natal/RN followed the urban policy steps from other Brazilian cities, however, it appeared peculiar aspects and political issues that had a strong impact on its planning and urban management. Methodologically, documentary and bibliographical research are intended to be done, detached archivistically between themes, images and specific moments in the history of (urban) planning and management of Natal; in addition to an explanatory research with historical procedures to identify operative factors and planning inoperability from a retrospective; and the field research, which will be done followed by interviews with open questions for a former Mayor, secretaries, technicians and other persons that stood out in the processes of the Master Plans of 1994 and 2007. Finally, this research also aims to influence reflection and academic debate, so that other researchers at the national level may study the Master Plan from an institutional, political, administrative, historical, with more human sense, and not only as a technical, legal, rough and bureaucratic instrument.