The right to fully experience urban space and all the possibilities it offers has always been a distant reality for the vast majority of Brazilians. Recently, however, we seem to be drifting further and further from this reality. There is a sense that every day we witness more threats to the population's right to the city, ranging from fundamental issues, such as the freedom of movement in São Paulo, to symbolic dimensions like the presence of low-income populations in wealthy neighborhoods, as seen in Salvador. We must speak openly about these threats and name them as such (words have power!), while also imagining pathways for confrontation and political resistance. What is on the horizon at the start of 2020?

A desperate child screams in the middle of Dom José Gaspar Square in downtown São Paulo, pleading for them not to hurt her mother. She cries as she watches her being forcibly dragged by municipal agents from the cart where she sold fruit daily to the square's patrons. Her mother cries as well, trying to explain to the agents that the fruit and the cart were all she had to support her daughter. Moved, onlookers watch the scene and try to reason with the subdistrict officials, but they keep confiscating the goods—after all, “orders are orders.” 

But what is the “order” that governs public spaces?