Trends of the social segregation in global and unequal metropolises: Paris and Rio of Janeiro in the eighties

Abstract

Globalization has been widely associated with increasing urban inequality, urban poverty and segregation. The global city model particularly has spread the ideal that the restructuring of the labor market by the economic globalization process inevitably produces a new type of social and spatial dualization. The cases of Paris and Rio de Janeiro allow a comparison of two cities affected differently by economic globalization, and of two structures of labor markets. What are the trends of change of their respective social and urban structures? To answer the question, we examine the changes in overall ocupation structures, and their impacts on urban segregation patterns are compared sistematically using census data. A serie of hypotheses are proposed to interpret the similarities and differences observed between them and with the global cities model, their relations to specific forms of global economic restruturing, to specific features of labor relations, social policy, class structures and social stratification.

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