摘要：A recurrent problem in Brazilian municipalities is local government inability to establish a policy framework conducive to an urban development process of recuperating public spaces, improving public service provision, and enhancing citizenship rights. Too often, in cities both large and small, an array of municipal agencies and commissions, working on an improvised basis, achieves only meager results from public policies implemented to address urban decay, environmental degradation, precarious infrastructure, and inadequacy of public services. Why, then, are municipal governments trapped in this dark hole of ineffective policies? What are the constraints that prevent a harmonious urban development process? To address such questions, this paper analyzes the role of institutional arrangements in urban planning, using as its empirical component the policy framework in place in the city of Curitiba, Brazil. This case is contrasted with the broad context of urban planning practices in Latin America’s largest country, with a special focus on the role of a city agency, the IPPUC, in local public policymaking.
