O LUGAR DOS POBRES E A VIOLÊNCIA NA CIDADE: UM ESTUDO PARA O MUNICÍPIO DE SÃO PAULO

This paper discusses the relationship between poverty and urban violence, taking São Paulo Municipality as example. It is argued that the local of residence, and not the income, is the most adequate variable to evaluate the association between poverty and violence in the city. The spatial cut allows to observe the inter-relations among social, economic and law dimensions of the violence dynamic, which could not be understood through the observation of the income dimension only. The local of residence serves to identify where the law enforcement agencies fail and also to identify the environment that, due to its socio-economic characteristics are favorable to violence diffusion. The paper focuses on the life conditions of poor communities, highlighting slums areas. It stress that is precisely in these localities where the law enforcement agencies action is more problematical. Besides that, it reasons that precarious housing conditions are fundamental to explain the context of low socio-economic mobility, since the precarious space constrain the access to the resources which could help to overcome the community's disadvantages with respect to other social groups within the city. Finally, it shows the results of an exercise checking the correlation between, from on side, bad housing conditions and other socio-economical variables and, from the other side, the levels of violence in the city districts.