Heritage and Culture: the Salvation from Misery?

The Luz district in São Paulo is important because of both its past and present in the city. In the past, migrants and immigrants arrived there, searching for work and for a better life; nowadays, a great number of workers come from the metropolitan region also to work. However, the region is now characterized by drug use and trafficking, in the daylight, on the streets. At the end of the 1990s, the state government tried to “redeem” this district by installing cultural facilities and institutions inside listed heritage buildings, understanding culture as a “lifeline” for social problems. This paper will analyze the investments in heritage buildings to convert them into cultural institutions and the results of those investments that consume public resources without having the expected results.