The world championship of innovative urban planning.

The famous (and necessary) Preservation Plan for the Urban Complex of Brasília (PPCUB) continues its contradictory journey to the Legislative Chamber of the Federal District. "Contradictory journey" because, in the hands of the politicians and technicians in charge of Brasília's urban planning, the Preservation Plan has transformed into a Plan for Legalizing Errors and Introducing New Errors.

As is well known, there should have been a PPCUB (Urban Planning and Development Plan) since that sacred moment when Brasília was recognized by the extraordinary UNESCO as a "World Heritage Site" in 1987. In that same year, Lucio Costa himself committed the most egregious act of destruction against his own celebrated Urban Plan: he thoughtlessly drafted the document called "Brasília Revisited," which introduced enormous modifications to his own project without a single technical justification, without a single consideration of "demand." Lucio created new neighborhoods "attached" to the Wings of the Pilot Plan, without designing or truly planning a single one of them.

Ironically, the document in which the Author "criticized" his own Work was attached to the famous Decree 10.829/87, issued by Governor José Aparecido de Oliveira. This Decree 10.829/87 was drafted in response to a strong suggestion from UNESCO at the time that "the local authority create legal defenses for the cultural asset in question," as stated by Ítalo Campofiorito, the urban planner on the team that won the prestigious title, a master of his craft.

Simply "earning the title" was never enough. It was necessary for the city, its population, and its government to truly defend the title – in the face of enemies who would not hesitate to use "legal means" and "informal means" to gain privileged control over the urban planners and administrators of Brasília. And they did not hesitate, as the population well knows, since they are the ones most harmed.

A CITY THAT PROTECTS ITSELF IN A CONTRADICTORY MANNER: BY DESTROYING ITSELF.

Twenty-five years after its listing as a protected site, there are still no coherent legal defenses for the "Cultural Asset in Question," for this important CUB – Brasília Urban Complex. This has not diminished the passion of Brasília residents for Brasília. We must belong to the only Brazilian city where EVERYONE discusses urbanism like people from Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo, Rio Grande do Sul, Minas Gerais, etc., discuss football.

Only in Brasília could someone draw an analogy between football and urbanism, between the passion for football and for urbanism, and be certain that they would be perfectly understood.

Just like in football, "everyone's a coach," and we know perfectly well how to organize the team and the plays to win any game. We also know how many blunders the "coach-governors" made, leading the team to successive defeats – ultimately, to the humiliating exit from the Championship. For honest fans, successive defeats and elimination from a major championship are unthinkable, unacceptable things. Fortunately for football, it's one year after another: next year "we'll fight again, and this time, we'll do everything right."

The World Championship of Modern Urbanism has a unique, extraordinary title.

Unfortunately, in urban planning, there's no "new championship next year." We won a World Cup of Urban Planning in 1987: the status of World Cultural Heritage. However, judging by the way our country does urban planning, generating serious inequalities and environmental imbalances (problems that the "Park City" could eliminate if Lucio Costa's concept were fully developed in all Brazilian cities), we will NEVER be "TWO-TIME CHAMPIONS" in the "innovative urban planning" category, at this level.

Moreover, we are cynically negotiating our own exit from this status as UNIFIED WORLD CHAMPIONS OF INNOVATIVE URBAN PLANNING, at this very moment. Cynically, because we are destroying, throughout this long 25-year period in which we have been "world champions of urban planning," the fundamental conditions for the title to remain with us – while blatantly lying to our global partners.

Will we be able to corrupt the world? Well, that's another story, Brasília, a dangerous and dubious game.

This reveals one of the basic rules of this world championship: "Remain Champions," urges UNESCO, the United Nations entity that did not hesitate to grant Brasília the title of World Heritage Site in 1987.

Only now, 25 years after this honor, is Brasília acting like that proverbial citizen who "locks all the doors only after being robbed." In this case, as UNESCO warns us, we are locking the doors "with the thief inside."

The theft will continue, more blatant than ever. We are developing a PPCUB (Urban Planning and Development Plan) without addressing a single serious aggression against the city, nor punishing a single perpetrator. Worse, the GDF (Federal District Government) is summoning precisely the same factors of degradation to... preside over the process of developing and managing this "Preservation Plan".

UNESCO portrays the state of progressive corruption in Brasília's urban planning.

UNESCO was very clear in its report on its visit to Brasília in 2012 (March/April):

RECOMMENDED... "to cancel the current PPCUB approval process and establish a formal consultation process through a commission formed by the GDF (Government of the Federal District) and IPHAN (National Institute of Historic and Artistic Heritage), allowing for the active participation of the University of Brasília, the Association of Architects, ICOMOS, and community organizations. The results should be presented to the World Heritage Committee for evaluation."

(Understanding: this PPCUB is immoral, it denigrates the city. But the GDF [Federal District Government] doesn't seem to respect anyone other than its "supporters," those responsible for its destructive governance).

This recommendation should be studied by Brasília's urban planners, by the politicians who claim to care about the city's reputation, with caution, prudence, and civility – after all, since 1987, UNESCO has been on our side, honoring the city like no other international entity has done. NONE.

On the contrary, the world knows about the successive episodes of corruption in Brasília. The entire planet knows what "Pandora's Box" was, the Federal Police operation that revealed to the world the corruption scheme surrounding the approval of the 2009 DF TERRITORIAL PLANNING MASTER PLAN. The whole world saw the lengths to which public officials, the politicians in power, can go when it comes to the "real estate game in the Federal District." They do "anything for money."

Pandora's Urban Planning

It is evident that this same real estate game that led us to "Pandora's World" is entirely within the current PPCUB proposal that the GDF is taking to the CLDF. We are locking the house with the thief inside, for his privilege and comfort. We are playing like losers in a World Championship that should be ours forever – and it won't be!

Therefore, pay close attention to what this great friend, UNESCO, suggests: don't miss Brasília, don't miss the World Championship of Innovative Urbanism!

In my view, we must understand why UNESCO made such a categorical, strong recommendation against the continuation of the Preservation Plan:

1) The GDF (Government of the Federal District) created a Preservation Plan that does not preserve, that is not based on any commitment to preservation, that is not based on any content of Heritage Education or on a declared understanding of what the fundamentals of urbanism are in Brasília's own urban plan;

2) The GDF (Government of the Federal District) created a Preservation Plan that introduces very serious modifications, such as the proposed privatization and verticalization of Block 901 North, creating absurd urban, real estate, environmental, and traffic impacts in the Central Area of ​​Brasília;

3) The GDF (Government of the Federal District) fails to conduct the most important assessment: that of the cumulative impact of all the modifications made to Brasília over these 25 years as a "World Heritage Site" – especially the unbelievable "North Supermarket Sector" and the hundreds of encroachments on public areas in the Local Commerce Sectors of Asa Sul;

4) Over these 25 years, the GDF (Government of the Federal District) has created enormous amounts of URBAN WASTE that it wants to "officialize," that it wants to force down the throats of the population and UNESCO, whether through political means (in the "Pandora's Way") or through institutionalized violence (as occurs through the persecution of political adversaries it finds within the community, through the criminalization of criticism of government actions). The community and intellectuals who defend Brasília are persecuted and criminally prosecuted "for the tone of their criticisms," for the confrontation they have the courage to promote against corruption in Brasília's urban planning. Let's talk more about this!

Right now it is crucial that we democratically engage in dialogue with the District Deputies, hoping that "Pandora" does not repeat itself, and that we do not lose the World Championship of Innovative Urban Planning, of Modern Urban Planning, which Brasília fortunately won in 1987. We need, in fact, to take stock of the urban waste and sweep it away from our city, or we will lose Brasília, which was once admired by the world.