Disconnecting the territory:

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1 Disconnecting the territory: A diachronic configurational study about gated communities in Brasília Giuliana de Freitas Conselho de Arquitetura e Urbanismo do Brasil [Brazilian National Architecture and Urbanism Council] giu.giuliana@gmail.com Valério Medeiros Câmara dos Deputados, Congresso Nacional; Faculdade de Arquitetura e Urbanismo da Universidade de Brasília; UNIEURO [Chamber of Deputies, National Congress; Faculty of Architecture and Urbanism, University of Brasília; UNIEURO] valeriodemedeiros@gmail.com Abstract The article examines the configurational diachronic process of the Federal District s urban sprawl (Brasília, Brazil), based on the study of irregular occupation by gated communities and the corresponding public policies related to their emergence and/or developed for legalizing them. The paper analyses how these occupations occurred, and indicates the resulting morphological features, evaluating the consequences to segregation/integration processes in the capital of the country. In order to conduct the study, three research questions were established: (1) Is there a cause-effect relationship between public policies and the occupation of territory by gated communities?; (2) How consistent was the government s role concerning the issue over time?; and (3) How has the Federal District s urban grid diachronically changed due to the occupation by gated communities? In furtherance of analyzing the impact of progressive urban growth in the territory, changes in the urban fabric relationships were explored (configuration), allowing us to observe how these settlements affected the urban dynamics in Brasília. The analysis was performed by using space syntax (Hillier, 1996; Hillier and Hanson, 1984; Holanda, 2002), based on the study of the city as a system of relationships. Results have shown that: (a) there was a gradual process of the occupation of empty spaces, especially near the Pilot Plan and the most important satellite cities; (b) the densification and the filling of voids did not show improvement in the connections of the urban fabric; (c) the gross increase of connecting axes over time versus gated communities did not produce better urban fabric performance; and (d) there was little change in the values of basic syntactic analysis variables (number of axes, connectivity, global integration, local integration, synergy and intelligibility) which shows that the discontinuity and the segregated nature of the street network of the Federal District are not an exclusive consequence of the gated communities, but of the modernist design based on which the city was designed. The findings point to the existence of mutual influence between public policies and the consolidation of the Federal District s configuration by gated communities. Besides that, this research subsidizes the identification of clear periods with defined characteristics that mark the progress or stabilization of these occupations. Furthermore, the interpretation of diachronic changes in the urban grid using space syntax techniques demonstrated the validity of the strategy, whose results show that the segregation process was perpetuated in the territory of Brasília, supported by a modernist motif. 103:1

2 Keywords Gated community, public policy, occupation, urban grid,distrito Federal. 1. Introduction The article examines the diachronic process of the Federal District s urban sprawl (Brasília, Brazil), based on the study of irregular gated communities and the public policies developed for legalizing such occupations. Gated communities are understood here as closed urban settlements, predominantly for housing, whose access is controlled. The research was conducted utilizing three research questions: 1. Is there a cause-effect relationship between public policies and the occupation of territory by gated communities?; 2. How consistent was the government s role concerning the issue over time?; What were the periods in which the government acted on the issue of irregular gated communities?; and 3. How has the Federal District s urban grid diachronically changed due to the occupation by gated communities? The physical and legal manner in which such occupations occurred over time was researched, considering that these land subdivisions were created by middle class populations and speculators free initiative, without the support of the existing laws. In addition, the resulting morphological features and their consequences regarding the urban fabric articulation performance was investigated. The diachronic transformation of the territory was reviewed using land use occupation and configuration maps based on the Theory of Social Logic of Space (space syntax), encompassing the following periods: (1) 1973 to 1988; (2) 1989 to 1991; (3) 1992; (4) 1993 to 2005 and (5) 2006 to Due to the problematic issue of the Federal District s territorial occupation by a significant number of irregular subdivisions, the article includes the analysis of relations between the diachronic process of urban sprawl of these areas and public policies developed to legalize them, assessing the impact on the current urban articulation of Brasília. The intention is to identify, specifically, various development stages of the occupation of the territory, as well as the adaptation of the legal instruments for the regularization process of these subdivisions, in face of their steady growth and the government's inability to track their development. The aim is thus to foster an understanding of the characteristics of such public policies in the Federal District, surveying specific periods and their corresponding features that have produced, over time, the dynamics of the present day urban fabric of the Federal District, with severe implications to urbanity aspects. Furthermore, we attempt to systematically present the legislation and public policies for territory organization, in order to define different periods in which the government acted in favour of legalizing these irregular gated communities. Finally, maps based on space syntax procedures (Hillier, 1996; Hillier e Hanson, 1984; Holanda, 2002; Medeiros, 2013) were created to display the transformations in the urban fabric of the Federal District, evaluating the impact of these irregular subdivisions on the configurational performance. In terms of structure, the paper is divided in five sections. After the introduction, the second one presents the urban context of the Federal District, highlighting the middle class role in the development of local gated communities. The third section is related to the methodological procedures, in order to clarify the strategies adopted to reach the results and discussions, presented in the fourth item, before the conclusions. 103:2

3 2. The urban context of the Federal District and the middle class In the Brazilian Federal District, the spatial and social model of lower income class segregation, placed away from the urban center, has fostered the consolidation of several voids between the Pilot Plan of Brasília (CBD and World Heritage Site by UNESCO) and the satellite cities 1 (Figure 1). This process was connected with the modernistic capital foundation discourse, based on green belts surrounding the urban nucleus. It was also associated with a heritage perspective, once the distance between the settlements was seen by the government as something that would preserve the integrity of the Pilot Plan. Figure 1: The Federal District and the location of the Pilot Plan surrounded by satellite cities. The occupation of the Federal District occurred under the bias of a modernist school of thought known as functionalism, which resulted in a new spatial order opposite to the "traditional" city, proposing a controlled growth through a rational logic to the urban layout. The aim was to avoid an increased urban density, by fostering open cities, zoning and rigid compartmentalization based on four key urban functions related to the Athens Charter: dwelling, work, recreation and transport. The product was an urban settlement that reinforced the dualism between town and country, bringing the latter into the city, with the development of the garden city principles. There was a reversal of urban strategies, by which now the main goal was to have empty spaces instead of a rigid configuration of places: the buildings were arranged freely throughout the space. In the Federal District scenario, the urban settlement was predominantly composed of monofunctional peripheral neighbourhoods. In a way, the Garden City model was embodied there, which favoured the creation of low-density suburbs as the city sprawled over the surrounding rural areas, according to Sousa (2010, p. 44). 1 The cities that arose around the Pilot Plan were called satellite cities because they were located around the urban core. They were predominantly residential zones and the great majority of citizens carried out their economic and commercial activities away from it. Nowadays, the Federal District is divided in thirty-one Administrative Regions, each one with its urban (corresponding to the political unit previously named satellite city ), rural and environmental preservation areas. In this study, the term satellite city shall be used to refer specifically to the first occupations in the Federal District, and also to make clear the specific urban area of the Administrative Region in question. 103:3

4 However, these new satellite cities created around the new capital were dependent on the urban core, the Pilot Plan, which fostered the spread of urban services and public transport from the urban center to the peripheral settlements. This process favoured real estate speculation, which was legitimized by the government to a certain extent: as the urban voids were now provided with essential services, their value increased. These voids were then subject to subdivisions, some of which were regular (created by the government) or irregular (based on the initiatives of land owners). The first wave of occupations took place over the areas between the Pilot Plan and the satellite cities, in the form of irregular subdivisions, mostly gated communities, created by/for the middle class 2. Considering recent records that state that 25% of the inhabitants of the Federal District dwell in irregular gated communities, it is possible to assume, therefore, that the different housing possibilities in the Federal District historically were not able to meet the demand for the middle class housing. Apparently, the impact and proportion of irregular subdivisions is greater and more aggressive than in any other Brazilian capital, with a strong presence in the diachronic urban sprawl. In Brasília, the relationship between housing policies and the middle class seems to encompass an area of land conflicts and deliberate omissions. On the one hand, the middle class was excluded from the process of creation of new satellite cities devised by the government housing programs, which were designed specifically for low-income segments of the population. On the other, a small portion of wealthy individuals benefited from investing in real estate, acquiring the most attractive properties and thereby creating a growing overvaluation of the urban center of the Federal District (Pilot Plan and surroundings, including Lago Sul and Lago Norte areas). This is the context that gave rise to the first irregular gated communities in the Federal District, in the 70's. The middle class occupied the empty territories between the Pilot Plan and the satellite cities, which met their needs: the areas were well located and the sale price was reasonably low if compared to the Pilot Plan, considering the illegal status. The gated communities, therefore, were implemented without the approval of the government, not in compliance with the provisions in urban and environmental legislation, which led to a number of conflicts in defining land plots, and the occupation of environmentally sensitive areas. For three decades, irregular subdivisions flourished much faster than the government s ability to supervise them - with or without collusion. Over time, the government sought to create legal solutions to rectify the problem of the increasing emergence of this type of occupation in the Federal District. 3. Methodology procedures The study is structured around the investigation of the relationship between public policies for irregular gated communities and the Federal District urban sprawl. In order to analyze the impact of the progressive occupation of the territory and to what extent these gated communities affect the urban dynamics of the Federal District, the changes in the relationships between the parts of the urban fabric are researched (configurational focus). The data obtained are contrasted with a chronological account of government actions in terms of policies for legalizing these subdivisions, at the same time the occupation of territory by gated communities have arisen. Therefore, the analysis of the social foundations in the configuration of spaces and their physical implications in the urban design of the Federal District was carried out using space syntax techniques (The Social Logic of Space), seeking to understand the connections between the urban form and space as a sociological process of territory occupation. 2 For this research, lower class is composed of families which still need to dedicate a high percentage of its budget to essential assets, while the upper class is composed of people who can dedicate a significant part of their budget to buying superfluous assets. The middle class is formed by the population with a balanced budget, not needing to dedicate a high percentage of their resources to buy essential assets, but also not yet able to allow the percentage of resources to superfluous assets to be significant. 103:4

5 Space syntax examines and establishes the distinctions among the parts of spatial systems. Hence, we furthered the in-depth study of the existing phenomena, finding the general properties of such relations and the articulation between the elements of the urban fabric and the social structure. Based on the configurational arrangements identified over time, it is possible to observe which spaces are more and less prone to attract people or movement, an important issue for urban dynamics comprehension. Thus, spatial configuration affects society, which means that the resulting space does not always act as planned. The space syntax theoretical approach provides tools which are applied according to specific procedures for examining the form-space as an independent variable. We assume that, as society comes in contact with this space, it undergoes changes in order to adapt itself, but in turn it modifies the existing space, in order to meet its needs. For the development of the time correlation between the rise and consolidation of the illegal land occupations by gated communities and the creation of legal instruments to face this reality, several instruments were used, some previously prepared by the government, others created specifically for this research. First, a document analyses was carried out, including: (1) a review of the literature about the subject, encompassing the definition of terms and expressions chosen for this study; (2) a survey of the bibliography regarding the urban occupation of the Federal District, as well as the irregular urban subdivisions; (3) a survey of the data concerning the legislation put into effect for legalizing such subdivisions, at federal and district levels, paying special attention to the ammendments made over time and how they were implemented in the process of territory consolidation;(4) analysis of the data published by the Diagnóstico Preliminar dos Parcelamentos Urbanos Informais no Distrito Federal (Preliminary Diagnosis of Informal Land Subdivisions of the Federal District), a document developed in 2006 by the Secretaria de Estado de Desenvolvimento Urbano e Habitação SEDUH/GDF State (State Department of Urban Development and Housing). This document was researched in order to review the actions taken by different public institutions involved with this issue, so as to establish the characteristics of each period in which the government acted towards it; and (5) gathering information from aerial photographs and geocoded databases developed by the government, in addition to the ones present in the afore mentioned document. Additionally, for the research of the urban occupation process based on the impact of irregular gated communities, the representation strategies of the Theory of Social Logic of Space were used (axial maps). After reviewing the theoretical aspects and collecting the data, five periods were chosen to be analysed further ( ; ; 1992; and ). Two kinds of maps were chosen as a tool to analyse each period: the occupation and axial maps, both derived from the geocoded data developed for this research. The variables examined were connectivity, global integration - HH, local integration - R3, intelligibility and synergy. 4. Results and discussion A new pattern: Flexibility and rigidity The Federal District and more specifically the Pilot Plan have offered its inhabitants a modernist urban morphology that did not fully answer the aspirations of its population. Rigid zoning, nondefined public spaces, coexistence between public and private spaces (which in turn leads to a territory conflict in the use of shared spaces) and a standard housing model have created dissatisfaction. On the one hand, the public space has been devalued and the private spaces proliferate, with restricted or exclusive use while on the other hand, the creation of gated communities has fostered isolation, a feature very appreciated by the middle class, who can allow access to its premises only to a select group of people. 103:5

6 The gated communities have thus pleased particularly the middle class of the Federal District, who saw the possibility of occupying areas immediately surrounding the Pilot Plan. In addition, the prices of the irregular real estate properties were very attractive, when compared to the abusive prices practiced in the legalized city. According to Malagutti (1996), the irregular properties are offered without any basic infrastructure, hence the lower prices. The infrastructure is later paid for and put in place by the buyers themselves. Figure 2: Gated communities in Brasília. It is possible to observe that, for the most part, the gated communities are close to consolidated urban areas, especially around zones considered noble. These settlements, created around areas of well-established status and social prestige, become themselves an extension of those areas (Pereira, 2001, p. 94). The gated communities are characterized by low population density, spread throughout former rural roads that have become the connection between them. They are surrounded by walls, with entrance gates that grant access to the premises. The width of the streets that lead to them has most often not been altered, which currently impacts the traffic of vehicles, pedestrians and public transportation. Internally, the design pattern is generally based on the maximum use of the land available for plots. 103:6

7 Very few of them have the minimum of public equipment, as determined by the current legislation. In addition, no areas for commerce and services are devised by the project. Mostly, they present a regular grid, based on one main street, from which all other local access streets derive. The spaces destined to collective use are generally the remaining zones, with dimensions and configuration which are not appropriate to their use (Figure 2). Public policies and land occupation by gated communities The new occupation pattern associated with the gated communities has lead to several actions on the part of the government throughout the 30 year period since they first arose (Figure 3). The legislation regarding urban development during this period and the planning and legalization initiatives underwent several changes and amendments, due to a process of maturity in face of the new reality. In addition to the issue of the construction of a wall closing these communities, there were several other problems, concerning urban development, land ownership and environmental preservation, which led to different phases concerning government actions, some of which were correct, and others which led to irreversible problems of urban occupation. Most of these occupations are still irregular today. Initially, at the time of the foundation of the new capital, the problems caused by migration were dealt with by implementing temporary solutions which later became permanent, as the case of the creation of the first satellite cities, to eradicate the illegal occupations around and inside the Pilot Plan. Subsequently, the government became concerned with environmental issues, specifically focused on the preservation of water supply sources for the Federal District. The definition of a preservation area surrounding the Pilot Plan, also associated with the modernist heritage motif, made impossible any urban occupation in areas near the urban center. In addition to this factor, the lack of public policies aimed at housing for the middle class encouraged this social stratum to seek irregular housing solutions precisely in the areas of preservation, for which there was still no specific designation. At the same time, the only regulatory legislation of urban land subdivision was at the federal level, according to which each municipality or Federal District should legislate based on their specific needs. In the case of the Federal District, TERRACAP (Real Estate Company of Brasília, in charge of managing public real estate) was the only one to hold the rights to urban subdivision. Hence, there was no interest on the part the government to develop instruments to legalize urban occupation. Since this activity was solely in their hands, they could create such instruments as they became necessary. However, the government failed to realize that, without housing policies focused on the middle class and without specific laws for the activities of land subdivision, irregular occupations arose naturally, following the only rule in place at the time: supply and demand. Thus, gated communities came into being in order to meet both the demands of middle-class population and the interests of speculators, looking for high financial return. The gated communities displayed poor urban design quality (since the total area was divided into residential plots) and presented an inadequate road system and no concern for infrastructure or public facilities. Environmental preservation was also disregarded in the subdivision of land. As there were no rules, society itself took charge of creating its own course of action, based on criteria that suited them best at the time. Once they found a way to adapt, even if irregularly, to the lack of urban planning, gated communities became a desired and widespread solution throughout the territory of the Federal District. The government was not able to deal with this new reality of land occupation. The first solution to solve the intense migration to the Federal District (the satellite cities disconnected from the Pilot Plan) was repeated without questioning and without predicting the long term consequences. In the 103:7

8 80s, Lucio Costa 3 proposed the implementation of new neighbourhoods aimed at the middle class 4. However, many of these solutions were devised but never put in practice; others were deviant and focused on speculation and, consequently, did not reach their goal. At that moment, the situation with irregular gated communities was out of control and real estate speculation became the main drive for directing the proposals for meeting the needs of specific groups related to the real estate market. Irregular gated communities exempted the government from its responsibility to take on an urban planning action that would include the middle class, thus focusing its efforts towards solutions for the lower income populations. The government, at various times, somehow facilitated the permanence and proliferation of gated communities, through laws that softened the requirements to be met to achieve legalization or the eradication of these occupations. Therefore, this social stratum took advantage of this public lack of control to settle inside the gated communities, thereby creating the present day reality that encompasses 25% of the Federal District s population. Finally, it can be said that the middle class solved their housing problem, in parallel to urban growth regulated by the government. It is possible to notice that there was a cause and effect relationship between the occupations by gated communities and the actions (or lack thereof) of the government towards the reality and housing needs of the middle class. Government actions: Periods We realized that the legalization policies devised by the government created spatial transformations that had implications for the Federal District s urban fabric configuration (see session 4.4). These actions, according to the data investigation, can be divided into 05 distinct periods, with very specific features (Figure 3). 3 The author of the original project of the Pilot Plan. 4 Lucio Costa drafted a document called Brasília Revisitada 85-87, in which he proposed the occupation of 06 areas close to the Pilot Plan, predominantly residential, and provided that such occupation should be conducted in a way that is integrated to the existing features in terms of form and spirit, ratifying the characteristic of park-city, suggested in its differentiated urban design, (Costa, 1987). 103:8

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10 Figure 3: Periods of government action towards gated communities in the Federal District. The first period, from 1973 to 1988, is characterized as the emergence phase of the first gated community in the Federal District, and lasted until the year before the first legal instrument to deal with the legalization of such settlements. The second period, from 1989 to 1991, encompasses the appearance of the first legal instruments, but they still represented the first attempts at acting in face of a reality for which the government was not prepared. At the time, only TERRACAP held the power to divide the urban land and offer marketable lots. Thus, every enterprise that emerged was considered irregular. The attempts to resolve these irregularities were viewed as arbitrary, benefiting a few at the expense of the whole. The third period, specifically the year of 1992, directly reflects the consequences of the previous period, which resulted in rampant illegal occupations by gated communities. At that time, the responsibility for urban planning responsibility is passed from the hands of the executive to the legislative branch of government. The legislative power allows entrepreneurs to also participate in the urban land subdivision. Various laws and decrees were created in order to facilitate the settlement of gated communities. In the fourth period, from 1993 to 2005, the government adopted more effective measures to combat irregularities, such as standardization in the requirements to apply for approval of a new subdivision, and the creation of new housing sectors, in order to legalize large clusters of gated communities. Finally, the period from 2006 to 2009 starts with the publication of the Diagnóstico Preliminar dos Parcelamentos Urbanos Informais no Distrito Federal (Preliminary Diagnosis of Informal Land Subdivisions of the Federal District), which shows the reality of the gated communities, encompassing 25% of the population. In face of this reality, the government assembled a group with representatives of all departments involved in the actions for legalizing the gated communities, so as to speed up the analysis of the problems, documents, studies and projects presented. Since this scenario could not be reversed, the commitment was to legalizing these occupations in areas which were not previously assigned for urban use. The government embraced the fact that the best way to deal with such irregularities would be to adapt the existing gated communities to the legislation, even if only minimally, and later define clear rules so that future occupations could occur legally. The street grid and gated communities Over time, the gated communities occupied the empty spaces located in noble areas close to the Pilot Plan and the most significant satellite cities of the Federal District (Figures 4 to 8). 103:10

11 Figure 4: Urban growth and axial map (integration value) for the 1973 to 1988 period (Red polygons: new gated communities). Figure 5: Urban growth and axial map (integration value) for the 1989 to 1991 period (Red polygons: new gated communities; yellow polygons: gated communities already installed). Figure 6: Urban growth and axial map (integration value) for 1992 (Red polygons: new gated communities; yellow polygons: gated communities already installed). 103:11

12 Figure 7: Urban growth and axial map (integration value) for the 1993 to 2005 (Red polygons: new gated communities; yellow polygons: gated communities already installed). Figure 8: Urban growth and axial map (integration value) for the 2006 to 2009 (Red polygons: new gated communities; yellow polygons: gated communities already installed). However, although the gated communities contributed the creation of the current urban grid, after analysing the syntactic variables based on the axial maps for each period, it is possible to see that even with a greater density, this filling of voids did not improve the articulation of the urban network. The indicators of connectivity, integration, intelligibility and synergy of the system were stable during the time period investigated (Figure 9). This means that the segregated character of the Federal District s urban grid as a whole is not a product of the creation of gated communities, but of a spatial configuration that fosters segregation, present since the city was implemented. Such characteristic segregation was consolidated by the gated communities which increased the density but failed to connect the city s axis. The literature indicates the negative impact of spatial fragmentation to the cities related or not to empty zones, as examined by Medeiros (2013). However, when the voids are filled, a better configurational performance is expected, once the articulations are increased. The problem is if the interventions do not occur, effectively articulating the urban fabric, the performance will remain poor. Such is the case of the gated communities in the Federal District, as their internal structures have not produced a greater articulation to the urban system as a whole. These occupations are based primarily on a single access or entrance point, disconnected from adjacent settlements, creating a set of spatial islands. Segregation was thus perpetuated in the territory. 103:12

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14 Figure 9: indicators of connectivity, integration, intelligibility and synergy. 5. Closing arguments The research about the legislation of the Federal District and the discussion about the corresponding strategies have allowed us to answer the first research question proposed in this paper: Is there a cause-effect relationship between public policies and the occupation of territory by gated communities and how can it be interpreted? By analysing the development of legal instruments for planning and controlling the urban expansion of the Federal District (session 4.2), it is possible to notice that the irregular occupation of land by gated communities had an influence over the evolution and maturity of public policies. Similarly, we see that these same policies influenced occupations, sometimes encouraging, sometimes discouraging or stabilizing them. The investigation about the periods of government action towards the irregular occupations by gated communities (session 4.3) allowed the identification of the decisive moments for the advance of these occupations. The findings provided an answer to the second research question: How consistent was the government s role concerning the issue over time?; What were the periods in which the government acted on the issue of irregular gated communities? Findings have suggested the legalization policies created spatial changes that had implications for the Federal District s urban fabric configuration. These actions conducted by the government, according to the investigated data, can be divided into 05 distinct periods, with very specific features: (1) 1973 to 1988; (2) 1989 to 1991; (3) 1992; (4) 1993 to 2005 and (5) 2006 to Finally, the diachronic configuration analysis examined using the research variables (session 4.4) has enabled us to answer the third research question: How has the Federal District s urban grid diachronically changed due to the occupation by gated communities? The results have pointed out that even with a progressive greater density, this filling of voids in Brasília did not improve the articulation of the urban network: connectivity, integration, intelligibility and synergy variables of the system were stable during the investigated period of time. The appearance of gated communities is derived from a social process present in many parts of the world, by which the middle classes seek to self-segregate, isolating themselves from different social segments. This modality of urban occupation is inspired by the garden city model, created in the 19th century, which was based on independent cores, located on the fringes of big cities. These settlements were devised as a way to achieve a better quality of life in closer proximity to nature, a return to rural areas. Nowadays, these gated communities affect the relation between public and 103:14

15 private spaces, since they make private, activities that were once held in public spaces, with access to everyone. In addition, such communities privatize spaces that were of collective use, restricting the access only to people who are a part of that specific social group. In the Federal District of Brazil, the gated communities first arose as a solution to the problem of lack of housing for the middle class. The first ones were irregular settlements, since until 1992, only TERRACAP held the right to offer marketable land subdivisions in the Federal District. Thus, once the growing housing demand for the middle class was not met, rural and environmental preservation areas were gradually occupied by these irregular subdivisions. Another factor that encouraged the middle class to respond so positively to the gated communities appeal was the possibility of building their houses their own way, which was not a possibility in the modernist design of the Pilot Plan and satellite cities. The middle class was able to embrace the same possibilities only offered by upper class neighbourhoods in the Federal District. Currently, the issue of irregular gated communities is irreversible in the Federal District, as it encompasses 25% of its total population. However, this situation can and should be controlled so as to avoid the emergence of occupations that do not comply with the legislation under effect. In addition, existing irregular occupations should comply to the legislation in order to compensate the damage caused and mitigate the possible effects in terms of environmental and urban impact. One of the great hindrances for allowing the occupation of urban land by gated communities is the issue of public areas, since these areas become of restricted access once they are within the community s walls. In the case of irregular gated communities which have already been implemented, it is possible to allow the closing of these public areas and the government should established certain conditions, such as the obligation to maintain these areas and provide free access to people who want to use public services. Another solution would be to totally bring down the walls and entrance gates of all gated communities. This way, these subdivisions would become part of the street grid of the Federal District and the public areas would not represent a problem to be solved when legalizing the gated communities. The urban grid configuration problems must be dealt with by the government, not only seeking to the current situation, but also to fulfil a need for better future planning in several aspects. The creation of connections between the main axes is necessary to improve the issues of connectivity and integration between the parts of the system. Another crucial factor is the forecast of future growth of the urban fabric in order to organize future occupations, which must approach the problems of urban grid segregation in a different manner than it is done today in the Federal District. To this end, the government should clearly outline its goals, using simulation tools, such as axial maps. Finally, since this configuration is now irreversible, this tool can be used to analyse possible interferences in the street grid. Simulations of new connections can be made, using the tool to plan urban interventions that will improve the system as a whole, both locally and globally. References Costa, L. (1987), Brasília Revisitada 85-87: complementação, adensamento e expansão urbana, Published in Diário Oficial do Distrito Federal nº Brasília. GDF (2006), Diagnóstico Preliminar dos Parcelamentos Urbanos Informais no Distrito Federal, Developed by Secretaria de Estado de Desenvolvimento Urbano e Habitação SEDUH/GDF, Brasília, Brasil. Hillier, B. & Hanson, J. (1984), The Social Logic of Space, London: Cambridge University Press. Hillier, B. (1996), Space is the Machine, London: Cambridge University Press. Holanda, F. (2002), O Espaço de Exceção, Brasília: EdUnB. Malagutti, C. (1996), Loteamentos clandestinos no Distrito Federal: legalização ou exclusão?, Master s Thesis, Universidade de Brasília, Brasília, Brasil. Medeiros, V. (2013), Urbis Brasiliae ou sobre Cidades do Brasil, Brasília: EdUnB. Pereira, F. (2001), A Relação entre a Política de Desenvolvimento Urbano e a Política Ambiental no DF: a Expansão Urbana na Forma de Condomínios. Master s Thesis, Universidade de Brasília. Brasília, Brasil. Sousa, C. (2010), Do Cheio para o Vazio. Metodologia e Estratégia na Avaliação de Espaços Urbanos Obsoletos, Master s Thesis, Universidade Técnica de Lisboa. Instituto Superior Técnico, Lisbon, Portugal. 103:15