The Street Is Ours
Community, the Car, and the Nature of Public Space in Rio de Janeiro

A compelling history of the impact of automobiles on the streets of Rio de Janeiro.

Shawn William Miller (Author)

9781108447119, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 19 December 2019

365 pages, 15 b/w illus. 2 maps
23 x 15.3 x 2.3 cm, 0.56 kg

'The Street Is Ours is a unique urban environmental history that makes one see that cities, not just the countryside, were once more than they are today. Community requires space; modernity, via the car, stripped that away. The book helps explain parts of Rio culture today, like the closure of certain highways on weekends in an effort to recapture the street's multidimensionality. Miller successfully creates a tangible history of something that one might otherwise only feel.' Jennifer Eaglin, Hispanic American Historical Review

The streets of Rio de Janeiro have long been characterized as exuberant and exotic places for social commerce, political expression, and the production and dissemination of culture. The Street is Ours examines the changing uses and meanings of Rio de Janeiro's streets and argues that the automobile, by literally occupying much of the street's space and by introducing death and injury on a new scale, significantly transformed the public commons. Once viewed as a natural resource and a place of equitable access, deep meaning, and diverse functions, the street has changed into a space of exclusion that prioritizes automotive movement. Taking an environmental approach, Shawn William Miller surveys the costs and failures of this spatial transformation and demonstrates how Rio's citizens have resisted the automobile's intrusions and, in some cases, even reversed the long trend of closing the street against its potential utilities.

Introduction: a common space to enjoy – Paquetá Island
1. Systems circulatory before the wheel – Ouvidor Street
2. The street's apotheosis – Central Avenue
3. Putting the car in carnival – Rio Branco Avenue
4. A blunt instrument – Misericórdia Square
5. Automotive law and the promises of safety – Assembly Street
6. Buyers and regrets – Praça Onze (Square Eleven)
7. Automotive flow vs. automotive storage – Castelo Hill
Conclusion: revolutions at the end of the street – Brasilia.

Subject Areas: Environmental science, engineering & technology [TQ], Urban & municipal planning [RPC], History of the Americas [HBJK]