In principle, urbanism as a science and practice is concerned with containing and regulatingcapitalism's perverse impulses, even when it maintains the prevailing relationships of dominationinherent to a socio-territorial system. One example of this is the State's action as a planning agent for theterritory's use.

Friedmann (1987) was skeptical about conventional State planning and defended it as a politicalact of collective interest that should dialogue with the socio-territorial collectivity. He understoodplanning as guiding society's future in the context of an efficient democratic perspective able to controland regulate the negative and willful impulses of perverse capitalism.

However, the resumption of global neoliberal principles is reconfiguring the urbanist perspectivehighlighted above, reducing it to purely mechanical actions legitimizing hegemonic interests. From thisviewpoint, the urban policies analyzed here are defined as State actions in the urban space whoseintentions, under capitalism, have become even more obscure, aiming to hide their nonpublic-selectivecharacter.

According to Franco (2001), from the urban-environmental point of view, public policies areactions implemented to stimulate the concretization of the

[...] Sustainable City, based on the principle of human-environment integration through the practice of [...]preservation, restoration and conservation by human interventions on the territory [...] and in the constructionand management of urban artifacts [...], seen as human ecosystems and [...] in their complex relationshipswith "natural" ecosystems, as well as with the network of cities in their regional surroundings and given theglobalized network. (FRANCO, 2001, p. 285)

If, on the one hand, due to the imperatives of neoliberal reason, the implementation of urbanistactions does not respect the territorialities of the subordinated classes, on the other hand, it may changethis framework of references, becoming public policies when the context of socio-territorial inequalitiesand injustices can be changed, so that the public interest guarantees Good Living. This term refers to aperspective of value derived from Latin American experiences, specifically from Ecuador and Bolivia.Considering the revaluation of the dimension of nature as an intrinsic part of the human being, itsurpasses the concept of well-being. The latter comes from large-scale European experiences in thepost-World War II era, especially in countries like France, Germany, and Sweden. Thus, environmentaldiscourse becomes a final play towards an alternative world, as, according to Freitas (2017, p. 13), "[...]when relating the issue of environmental degradation to the housing issue, two social movements thathave hitherto followed parallel trajectories and often conflict with each other can be united."

Therefore, a broad conception of public policies is taken into account, which considers the complexity of the affected territories' lived dimension. The "[...] broad conception of public policiesincludes the [...] integration and interaction between the different modalities of government policies[preventive, compensatory and redistributive], as well as between the different levels of government[municipal, state, federal]" (NETTO OLIVEIRA, 2002, p. 106).

Seeking to demonstrate the complexity of these actions, the author also emphasizes that "[...] public policies of a social nature must be understood historically in relation to the processes of advancesand setbacks of the State's guidelines [as the main "commander" of public policies]" (Ibidem). Thus, therelations between State and market must be viewed in the scope of the clash of interests involved in theprocess of defining public policy

Nevertheless, Araújo (2000) points out that one cannot fail to consider the set of difficultiesinherent to the authoritarian, patrimonial, and conservative inheritance of the Brazilian State, which tosome extent hinders significant advances in policies implemented in the country.

In keeping with the nature of the Brazilian State, urban policies use the territory according toparameters intrinsic to principles of Hygienics, aiming to gentrify spaces to meet the interests of theCommercial Financial Real Estate Complex (CFREC), which brings together the agents that can controlthe urban space production process. An alienating spatial action, Hygienics has persisted throughout thehistory of urban policies, demonstrating the commitment of urban management to capitalism'shomogenizing interests. The intentions of "sanitizing, beautifying and ordering" urban space are, as Moreira (1992) emphasized,

The significance of these interventions in the city's sanitation is irrefutable. They provide theinfrastructure required for implementing public policies about access to drinking water, wastewatertreatment, and garbage collection. Universal access to these services has, therefore, prevented theproliferation of epidemics that have often threatened human life in cities.

Hygienics is an urban medical perspective that renews its meaning in history. According to Foucault (1990, p. 89), it continually seeks to distribute individuals territorially, by placing them next toeach other, while simultaneously alienating, isolating, individualizing, and watching them to scan socialspace, dividing and inspecting it, under a permanently controlled gaze. These intentions are associatedwith the capitalist valuation of spaces represented by gentrification, which is actually the central purposeof implementing current urban projects. This process takes place in areas and

Despite the contextual time-space differences, hygienics-gentrifying urban actions, encouraged bythe State using the territory as an economic resource, have alienated the territories that stand in the wayof the imperatives of the neoliberal reason that reinforces capitalist interests, as can be seen in thestudies by Pontes (2017) and Soeiro (2017).

Although the neoliberal worldview has denied and destroyed nature, the close relationshipsbetween society and nature have never ceased to exist, inspiring their resumption, especially when thereis a desire to rescue the used territories' environmental dimension.

Thus, these are windows of opportunity to instigate cultural changes on the need to reestablish theinterrelationships between society and nature, both in thought and action to overcome large-scaleproblems, even though fundamental problems still have to be overcome.

On the issue of the integration of river courses in urban policies in French cities, Veyret (2006) argues that in general, urban redevelopment processes have been reinforced through the territorialreorganization of riverside areas by actions to implement projects that enable theinstallation/modernization of access roads and the combination of tertiary, recreational and residentialfunctions. Lower-income populations are replaced by more affluent ones, benefiting the real estatesector.

Agents linked to the CFREC constantly reorganize the territory used in capitalism as a resource ina contradictory and conflicting process. Corrêa (1989) maintains that urban space is simultaneously

In Recife, as in other cities with similar geographical sites, conflicts take place over interestsbetween classes that wish to reappropriate riverside areas and those that refuse to abandon them. Thedominant classes use the territory to maintain interests intrinsically linked to neoliberal intentionsthrough complex actions to conquer and appropriate the riverside areas that interest them with a view togentrification. In contrast, the subordinated classes use the territory as protection to maintain interestslinked to the world of work and, in turn, of their existence in the world.

As Elisée Réclus wrote in the nineteenth century, becoming aware of the complex nature of usedterritory makes it possible to think and reflect on concrete perspectives to change or, at least, to mitigatepeople's suffering. Otherwise, this space will remain alienated (FRÉMONT, 1999) and privatized, underthe imperative of the permanent conquest of territory as an economic resource. The acceleration of thisimperative occurs to overcome the land scarcity problem and favor the interests of the CFREC, whichneeds to continue expanding in space.

Accordingly, instead of using territory and its natural elements as a collective social right, what isevident is its privatization linked to extra-local demands guiding the various enterprises that, throughState actions, use Hygienics to gentrify the spaces that support them.

The subordinated classes, growing in awareness that nature is not a natural or static concept, canalter the situation when they organize and mobilize to revindicate the guarantees required to assert theirinterests from the State and, in turn, their right to the effective, high-quality public policies that are theirdue.

For environmental movements, for example, "[...] territory is no longer an a priori given, like'primordial matter.' It is a result, a production, and a collective creation". (MONGIN, 2009, p. 302)

In this perspective, the possibilities of environmental/spatial justice are found, bringing togetherauthors affiliated to different ideologies on the issue, such as Leff (2009) and Bret (2017). Instead, theyare heading towards the construction of a different rationale, envisioning fairer processes of usedterritory. If this is the case, it is not enough to rearticulate nature and society since, in reality, these twodimensions of humankind in the world are never really separate. As previously stated, environmentaldiscourse is used to rearticulate the social struggles for the right to the city.

This section analyses the treatment of watercourses in urban planning policies in Recife andLyon's distinct urban realities. The relationship between the city and the rivers is highlighted by theresponses to two questions posed by the researcher to the users of the riverside areas after the urbanrenewal actions. The questions intended to find out about access to the spaces and the feeling of socialacceptance from others' viewpoints in these spaces.

The comparative analysis showed that, although both cities were built according to capitalism'simperatives and, therefore, followed a similar spatial production logic, their inherent historical andgeographical specificities produced differences in terms of used territory and urban policy.

Fifty interviews were carried out in Recife and forty-five in Lyon, a total of ninety-five; the limitcriterion was the saturation of the responses' content. The interviews were conducted in riverside areasin both cities that had undergone urban revitalization actions.

In a quest to recover the symbiosis of society and nature, according to the historical vicissitudes ofthe present, the main urban actions based on the concept of territorial sustainability translate, above all,in the rehabilitation of riverine areas and the cities' afforestation, as was the case in both urbanisticprojects studied here. The La Confluence Project in Lyon, was responsible for revitalizing an area thatwas previously used mainly for industrial and port activities. The Parque Capibaribe-Caminho dasCapivaras Project (PPC-CC), in Recife, carried out actions in areas previously occupied by low-incomepopulations, removing stilt-houses and slums.

In the current historical context in which nature is gaining value, the dominant classes' revivedinterest in riverside areas views rivers as a commodity, masked by a discourse that declares them to be anatural heritage that should serve the whole urban community

As in France, in Brazil, the process of adding value to natural assets has led to the implementationof a set of actions aimed at the reoccupation of riverside areas. The hegemonic interests represented bythe CFREC reorganize the space, putting pressure on the State to facilitate the construction of luxuriousresidential and business condominiums, establishing the infrastructure needed for economic flows in the city. In Recife, this usually occurs after removing the subordinated classes living in both stilt-houses andslums in those areas.

Figure 1
Lyon. Presence of water bodies in the urban landscape.
author's private collection,2019.

Figure 2
Recife. Water bodies in the urban landscape.
IBGE / DGC. Continuous Cartographic Base, to the millionth - BCIM: version 4.0. Riode Janeiro, 2014; EMBRAPA. Agroecological Zoning of the State of Pernambuco. CD-ROM. Recife,2001. Organization: Manuela Nascimento, 2015.

Lyon (Figure 1) and Recife (Figure 2) are cities where rivers are a significant presence in their geographical landscapes, so the problem of the interrelationships between society and nature is a notableaspect of conceiving and putting into practice urban policies in each of these places.

The first map shows the Rhône and Saône rivers, while the striking presence of the Capibariberiver can be seen in the second. Interviews were conducted with the users of those riverine areas inlocations where urban renewal projects had been carried out.

Harvey (2013) emphasizes that in the process of its permanent historical development, capitalismhas primarily transformed everything in its path into merchandise to generate mainly economic profit,which principally benefits society's ruling classes.

Similarly, natural goods are also transformed into commodities and privatized, accelerating theeconomic valorization of space in its entirety, ransacking space, and provoking territorial conflicts. Thiscapitalist appreciation of space, in both the French and Brazilian cities,

This process of using the territory, privatizing and transforming into merchandise everything in itsway as a means and condition to generate purely economic values, is found, in a more perverse way, inthe Latin American model of capitalist valorization of space, implied in

The specificity of Brazilian and Latin American territorial formation has dramatically influencedthe differences between the two experiences of urban planning policies studied here.

In Lyon, the area in the heart of the city known as La Confluence due to its location at theconvergence of the Rhône and Saône rivers is no longer the center of predominantly port and industrialactivities; currently, it is an area described as a "smart and durable city."

Figure 3
Lyon. Urban Rehabilitation Project in La Confluence.
Lyon Confluence.FR, capturedon March 11, 2019.

The urban redevelopment policies were planned to comply with the environmental requirementscommitted to respecting the urban community's quality of life, concretizing the production of a spacepublicized by the government as "sober, intelligent and creative." (Figure 3)

The hypothesis that the redeveloped urban riverside areas along the two Lyonnaise rivers are usedby anyone regardless of their social condition was confirmed by interpreting the areas' users' statementsduring field research in January 2020. People of different income levels (up to a minimum wage (MW);between one and two MW and between two and three MW) attested that: "I come here when I want toand spend as long as I want, to relax,"; "I bought this food at a restaurant up there and came to eat hereon the pier [...] I also use this place to read a book and admire the surrounding landscape," "I alwayscome here where I feel free," and "I feel terrific here, that's why I always come back whenever I want."

It is pertinent to highlight the specificities originating in the South during comparative analyses.They are essential for understanding the world as a complex totality, freeing local thinking from thetendency to adapt mechanically to impositions outside the lived territory. According to Watson (2016, p.36), the term South goes beyond a mere geographical location.

One significant example of the South's contribution to a fruitful dialogue with the North is thequest for Good Living rather than Well Being. Exploring the link between the relevance of respect fornature as a collective asset intrinsic to human life on Earth and the social struggles aiming at conqueringthe right to the city for all may be a productive way forward.

However, in interviews with users of different income levels (up to a minimum wage (MW);between one and two MW and between two and three MW) in revitalized areas on the banks of theCapibaribe river, there were differing replies regarding the use of the redeveloped territory. In a surveyconducted in two periods of the day (morning and afternoon), there were no respondents in the firstincome level, one person was included in the range between one and two MW, and the number of peoplebetween two and three MW was very low. The majority of the interviewees were from the category"above three MW."

While the people belonging to the two higher income brackets told the interviewers that they usethe recreation and leisure facilities in the area "when they and how they want to," the person in theincome bracket between one and two MW revealed that, "despite visiting the area, she does not feel atease" because "others look at her with suspicion." Those on higher incomes also replied: "we use thearea, but we are afraid [of being attacked or robbed]." They add that "Whenever I can, I go there despitethe fear of being robbed," "Due to the violence, I only come with someone else," and "If the area weremore selective, there would be more people here of our level."

The content of these responses attests to the significant selectivity of the used riverside territoryafter its urban redevelopment in Recife, mainly resulting from the differences in terms of thesocio-territorial specificities inherent to France and Brazil, as

highlighted by the comparative analysis. Finally, in places with unresolved citizenship issues, theterritory is more likely to be used selectively, disregarding respect for social diversity.

The PPC-CC is notable because it encouraged social awareness and a rapprochement betweensociety and nature by revaluing the city's relationship with the river, highlighting the importance of itsconservation in the context of environmental concern. This attitude mobilized various sectors of society;however, behind the project was the dominant classes' intention to reappropriate the areas and gentrifythem, obviously, after the stilt-houses and slums around the river had been removed (Figures 4).

Figure 4
Recife. PPC-CC maquette
Capibaribe Park Project, author's collection, 2015

The maquette in Figure 4 is a three-dimensional image representing an imaginary view of the cityaccording to the parameters of the CFREC's interests, superimposed on the territories historically usedby the subordinate classes, which were intentionally "erased" in the model.

It is worth reiterating that the idea of transforming Recife into a city-park and increasing theamount of public green areas by redeveloping the Capibaribe river as a structuring axis of the city isattractive and relevant to the current moment. The problem lies in the issue of who will be entitled tothis substantial "public space." The official discourse masks that there are favelas and stilt-houses in the500m radius calculated from each riverbank (Figure 5). In previous local urban experiences, such as thatof the Beira Rio Avenue (Torre neighborhood), this low-income housing was entirely removed, aharbinger of things to come.

Figure 5
Recife. Excerpt from the navigability project area of the Capibaribe.
uthor'scollection, 2013.

As well as being omitted from the PPC-CC's publicity model (see Figure 4), the subordinateclasses' territories were not mentioned in the project's managers' presentations at the beginning of theinitiative. The only actors distinctly presented as supporters of the above actions are entrepreneurs, employees linked to government institutions, and other notable civil society members.

The PPC-CC, which started in 2013, is the result of technical cooperation between the Secretariatof Environment and Sustainability (SMAS) of the City of Recife (PR) and the Federal University ofPernambuco (UFPE). According to a publicity advertisement (FOLHA DE PERNAMBUCO, 2016, p.1), it aims to

Residents of slums and stilt-houses along part of the Capibaribe's banks were removed, tearing aterritorial fabric created through a historical process of occupation of space. Others were placed inhousing developments whose architectural design did not consider their specific dwelling and livingrequirements. Relocated to distant areas with no access to the formal urban labor market, they hadproblems with new expenses, such as condominium fees, energy bills, and public transport.

It is notable that, once more, the divergences between the interests of nature preservation andsocial inclusion have recurred, as highlighted by Freitas (2017) when studying the urbanization processof an Environmental Protection Area in the Brazilian Federal District, who found that environmentaldiscourse sometimes ends up being used to sustain speculative objectives.

The current conservative urban managers are pursuing Recife's society's acceptance of thePPC-CC, targeting the dominant and "middle" local classes and concealing their hygienist purpose of"cleaning" the riverside areas of the territories deemed undesirable by the CFREC. The official discourseis constructed around the waters of the Capibaribe, associated with the city's afforestation through theconstruction of boulevards, squares, and parks, thus excluding those social classes that should also havetheir right to nature guaranteed

There is an economic revaluation of the space favoring the dominant classes; nature is privatizedand denied as a good held in common by the community. Although public managers claim they are"talking to the families in stilt-houses and favelas," the representatives of entities from the riversideterritories are not even mentioned by name in the project's design and discussion, unlike the companiespromoting this urban action. In reality, the PPC-CC is a hygienist-gentrifying project for the city'sspaces, which have been revalued by the presence of water and natural vegetation, functioning, in short,as a "pull" for the expansion of a purely economic logic of the city.

Our interest is not just the territory per se but, concomitantly and above all, used territory, basedon the concept that society always uses space as both a means and a condition to its own existentialdynamics in its permanent historical occurrence.

Even though under the capitalist socio-spatial system, territory is used according to itsfundamental parameter as a resource for wealth generation, thus causing inequalities and injustices in alldimensions of human life, the process does not happen in the same way everywhere in the capitalistworld. Therefore, the socio-territorial specificities inherent to the historical-spatial phenomenon pointtoward significant differences typical of capitalism in the North and South.

In this perspective, nature has become an increasingly important factor to satisfy the CFREC'sinterests through which capital continues to accumulate in an increasingly intense and diffuse manner.Thus, in general, the territory and its content are used to satisfy the dominant classes' interests, rejectingand alienating anything that does not immediately interest them.

A discourse is framed and disseminated, which presents itself through the need for arapprochement between society and nature while acting as a tool to conceal the real dominant interestsinvolved. Overall, the process is much more perverse in the realities of a country like Brazil, which is why the research's findings were that Lyon's territory tended to be used by the urban community as awhole.

There is also a reduced perception of the Capibaribe river, that is, an attempt to "solve" theproblem of a river that, before reaching Recife, passes through several other municipalities in theAgreste and Mata de Pernambuco, receiving residential, industrial, and agricultural waste.

Another significant problem is the lack of dialogue between SMAS and the other municipaldepartments, such as the Secretariat of Education and Social Action, which could also make aninterdisciplinary contribution to such an exciting idea, reactivating the participation of civil society as awhole in the search for a more equal and equitable space.

We are grateful to the National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq) forthe financial support it has given us through the granting of a research productivity grant, as well as theFederal University of Pernambuco (UFPE), for the technical and logistical infrastructure provided.