Participation In The Context Of Metropolitan Planning: A Case Study Of Belo Horizonte’s Metropolitan Region Authors: Ana Flávia Costa da Silva Junia Ferrari de Lima Laís Grossi de Oliveira Mariana de Moura Cruz Victor Gabriel de Souza Lima Alencar INTRODUCTION The metropolis is much more than an economic or physical and territorial dimension, that is, it cannot be understood only as the enlargement of municipal conflicts and contradictions. There is a dimension that is fundamental and relates to the challenges of governance, a subject that deserves attention in discussions on planning and management, which was emptied since the municipalization that occurred with the new Brazilian Federal Constitution of 1988 1 . The metropolitan instance has recently regained space in technical and academic circles in the Metropolitan Region of Belo Horizonte (RMBH), especially since the Constitutional Amendment No. 65 in 2004, which defined the guidelines for the reorganization of metropolitan management. However, even with such progress, this issue has not yet reached the same level of interest from the population in general as the local issues have. There is still a detachment from the metropolitan issues despite its direct impacts on much of this population’s everyday life, especially with regards to displacements between cities. To Azevedo and Mares Guia (2015, p.371): “The theme of metropolitan regions is traditionally characterized by its low centrality in the political agenda of both governments, just as of social movements, since - unlike issues involving public goods, such as hospitals, schools and public transport, among others - the institutional transformations in this area do not imply usufruct of immediate benefits." 2 1 The 1988 Federal Constitution is characterized by an institutional model that favors initiatives and autonomy to 2 “O tema das regiões metropolitanas se caracteriza tradicionalmente pela baixa centralidade na agenda política, tanto dos governantes, quanto dos movimentos sociais, uma vez que — diferentemente de questões que envolvem bens públicos, tais como hospitais, escolas e transporte coletivo entre outros – as transformações institucionais nessa área não implicam usufruto de benefícios imediatos” (translation by the authors)