BRICS-Cities and the Issue of Social Mobility: Attraction of Capital and the Right to the City

This Policy Brief discusses, through the concept of BRICS-Cities, two different agendas of urban development. Each of these agendas leads to distinct notions of social mobility, which, in turn, leads to different conditions of urban life. This paper is organized as follows: The first section briefly analyzes the relation between the urban as a socially constructed process and social mobility. The second section introduces the concept of BRICS-Cities. This concept seeks to express a process of mobility in which megacities assume certain attributes of global-cities, performing more important roles in the global economy. The third section analyzes two agendas of urban development in BRICS-Cities – attraction of capital and the right to the city – and the different connotations of social mobility arising from each of these agendas. In conclusion, this paper will argue in favor of the complementarity of both agendas in order for the BRICS to become a vector for the consolidation of an inclusive and democratic order through the development of their cities.