Brazilian metropolises, where poor people are mainly concentrated, are characterised by a high degree of socio-spatial fragmentation. In a very unequal society, it means that metropolises combine a high degree of social distance with spatial proximity; including in their urban cores, where precarious settlements, favelas, co-exist with neighborhoods fully integrated into globalization. Recife, the fifth biggest Brazilian metropolis, is one of the most relevant examples of this situation. Its degree of poverty is one of the highest in Brazil. The Municipality played a pioneering role in the quest for solutions to reduce urban precariousness in central areas, despite pressure from private real-estate investors to recover high value land for high standing buildings. A “Regularization Program of the Special Areas of Social Interest”, usually called Prezeis, was implemented, like in other cities. It is an original response to the dilemma between eradication and rehabilitation of precarious areas. Its main issue at stake is to respect the right to the city for all, like the written Brazilian Constitution has explicitly planned, and to allow poor people to remain inside their community and their informal housing. However, in Recife as well as in other cases, urban policies confront with permanent contradictions regarding a strategy of reinforcing the international attractivity of cities and the wish to reduce urban segregation; what should be regarded as a factor of insufficient results of the program. Focusing on this contradiction, we analyze the Prezeis as a paradoxical innovation from a political and a social point of view. Indeed, its implementation has for consequence to fix the socio-spatial fragmentation, at least temporarily. It aims to allow inhabitants to have access to living conditions in accordance with the usual housing and use of urban space standards, in their own living spaces, favelas.