Industrial crisis in the centre of the periphery: stabilisation, economic restructuring and policy responses in the Sao Paulo metropolitan region

This paper is concerned with the impact of economic stabilisation and internationalisation on the São Paulo metropolitan region and, in particular, in the industrial heartland of the Greater ABC region. The paper begins with a general discussion of the issue of globalisation and inequality in Brazil. It then examines the background to economic development in Brazil with special emphasis on the pattern of economic instability in the 1980s, before discussing the attempts to address this instability in the form of the Real Plan. The paper shows that the introduction of the Real Plan has not been socially or territorially neutral. In particular, the position of the ABC region has been undermined by the processes unleashed by the Real Plan. The final section looks at the response of different actors in the region to these developments.