ABSTRACT
The modernization of Salvador's mass transit systems might be considered long overdue for a city whose metropolitan region has a population approaching four million. The government of the State of Bahia financed a number of the projects that sought to consolidate the Permanent Forum of Entities of Bairro da Paz through funding from the state research council. The Brazilian "City Statute," a federal law established in 2001, in theory obliges municipal governments to implement measures to include the participation of "civil society" in the elaboration of central instruments of urban planning, along with oversight of their management and ensuring the public accountability of city officials. The sustained activities of the project eventually created new public spaces in which women's knowledge and right to speak achieved greater social recognition. Knowledge in development is a form of action within an associated form of social organization.
