Informal clustering and strategic design

If city planning exists in Sao Paulo, of which I'm sure it does, it is as much a parallel world to the real urban development as are the spatially segregated worlds like Alphaville and Paraisopolis to each other. And similarly it would be difficult to see these forces operate simultaneously.

After a week in Sao Paulo, I noticed three parallel worlds, one of the future, one of the past and one of the present. Unfortunately Joao Tonucci commented, "..the city of the future (modern and bold architecture, the faith in social transformation) is now buried in the past, and the city of the past (post-modern language and visceral individualism) is our future. And the informal city keeps struggling day by day.".

On a very small scale I've noticed examples in Sao Paulo of clustered informal development. Where one takes an initiative, others soon follow. This happened particularly in the favelas. Where the municipality took the initiative to paint one house, the neighbours followed. Another interesting clustering of informality can be found in the retail. Most unique is the cluster of interior light shops that double as parking garages.

The clustered informality might be a key to the use of strategic design as a city planning tool. By making specific and relatively small interventions you can steer the way in which the city then evolves informally.

As an approach to this topic I would like to map the process of informal clustering in the strip to get a better understanding of the mechanism of this clustering. There seems to be a swimming pool stores cluster in Sao Paulo which I have yet to visit. There might be other remarkable clusters, together forming a network on the scale of the entire city. Parallel to this network I would like to get an understanding on the new network in the sky and see if and how it relates to the city development and the process of informal clustering.