THE CITY AS A TOTALITY: SOME PERSPECTIVES AND PROBLEMS

Abstract

We set the challenge of thinking of the contemporary city as an open totality, hybrid and relational within a capitalist society riddled with contradictions and conflicts. Thus, this paper seeks to undertake a theoretical and methodological discussion from some perspectives that opens us all to reflect the city in the midst of urban problems; however, we will always have the backdrop of the social reality of the city of Rio de Janeiro. To do so, while a major urban problem, we will discuss the process of segregation, expressed mainly in the slums and condos in self-segregated neighborhoods embedded in both rich and poor ones.