Democracy and urban segregation: thinkings about the relationship between city and citizenship in Brazilian society

Traditionally, cities have been thought like places of modernity and democracy, nevertheless, contemporary debate about urban impacts of economic transformations is marked by the hypothesis of the emergency of a new socio-spatial order, in the which cities fulfill an exactly inverse paper, with the sprouting of a dualized social structure and a fragmented spatial organization. In this article we examine some aspects of this hypothesis, according to our findings of changes and continuities of socio-spatial and institucional nature in Brazilian metropolis. Using a theoretical frame that articulates democracy with its social conditions and institutions, we finally discuss the effects that socio-spatial transformations in Brazilian cities may have over the effectiveness of citizenship rights and democratic dynamics.