Social agents, the provision of buildings and property booms : the case of São Paulo

This paper examines the systems of social relations underpinning the late 1980s' office boom in Sao Paulo, Brazil. Using 'institutionalist' approaches to provide an empirical examination of these systems, it focuses on the nature of the dominant agents and their strategies, the linkages that allow them to perform their functions, and the relative position and power of the agents in the production and use of built structures.