In June 2013, millions of Brazilians took to theUrban policy streets to protest a variety of causes. Sparked by a transportation tariff hike and fueled by widespread perception of corruption and waste that included the FIFA Confederation Cup that would start in a few days, the protests were described by the mainstream media as a novelty in Brazil. ‘The giant has awaken,’ the news said in unison. This was quite far from reality. Since Brazilian society started its speedy process of urbanization, the streets became a stage of class disputes. Protests big and small had happened rather frequently throughout the twentieth century. This chapter is based on the idea that we should theorize urban transformation through the lens of inequality as expressed in spatial arrangements. To understand the social and spatial dynamicSpatial dynamics of the main Brazilian cities I propose a double tripod. Formed by three rods united in the middle and separated at the ends, this tripod creates two triangles at each edge. The triangle for the wealthy minority is composed of land ownership, availability of cheap labor, and relative security due to repressive policing. The triangle for the poor majority is composed of housingHousing without property rights, availability of informal or other low-paying jobs, and state repression. This theory allows me to embed the history of civil society within the history of planning and its institutionalization. If sometimes urban and regional planning benefited the expansion of civil rights, it quite often worked on behalf of class exploitation, deepening spatial inequalities.