To Faustini, these prevailing stereotypes result from an objectification of the landscape and a failure to consider the human experience - in the 19 texts that comprise this work, the authors position the contemporary carioca in a metropolitan framework, increasingly connected to different districts and diverse identities.

the new carioca is presented as an 'ideal type' whose work will be indispensable in overcoming inequality. the authors invite the reader therefore to mirror the 'utopian subject' in order to meaningfully transform the city and draw to a close the fable generated by capital.

All three authors have considerable experience in social development programs and have worked tirelessly to create physical and ideological space for marginalized citizens, believing that the city can only be re-invented if conventional narratives are re-written.