This paper describes the urban reform process in Brazil and its legal and institutional innovations since the promulgation of the 1988 Federal Constitution. These include the 2001 City Statute and the creation of the Ministry of Cities and the National Council of Cities in 2003. The paper discusses the progress to date in urban reform and the issues that still need to be addressed. Within this, it notes the need for a combination of legal reform, institutional change and renewed social mobilization at all levels to take advantage of the new political spaces created for urban reform, and thus to reverse the spatial and social exclusion that has characterized most urban development in Brazil in recent decades.
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