HUMANIZING THE CITY

The spectre of social, political and psychological breakdown is stalki ng the cities of both North and South. Urban life has broken down: the city, which was once the cradle of democracy, has become a synonym of exclusion and violence. This,pessimistic observation should not preve nt us from realizing that city dwellers are in search of citizenship, despite, or perhaps because of, this situation. To respond to this we must not hesitate to deconstruct in order to create new alliances amon g everyone involved in the city so as to 'reoccupy' it. Cities must be humanized. We must break with economism, create a new ethic of the ci ty at the service of people and strengthen local ability to reconceptu alize it completely. The city of the future must be built not by speci alists alone but by the people themselves. Flexible methods and polici es of support and participation must be established. In this respect, the example of the Brazilian mutirao is worth studying.