Abstract: This dissertation analyzes the role of local government in conflicts over urban land through a comparative study of Brazilian cities from 1990 to 2005. By using Brazil as a strategic research site, I examine how urban governments shape disputes in which different social groups compete for access to and use of key urban spaces. The period under study follows a transitional decade (the 1980s) in which decentralization and democratization increased the political, fiscal, and administrative autonomy of municipal governments in Brazil. This political restructuring increased heterogeneity in terms of two key characteristics of urban governance: the breadth of interest representation in urban government and the extent to which urban government actively intervenes in the ordering of urban space. In the first part of the dissertation, I use survey data on municipal government characteristics to formulate indices of interest representation and urban intervention. I then compute and plot the scores for major Brazilian cities to select four cases for in-depth comparison: Recife, Fortaleza, Porto Alegre, and Rio de Janeiro. In the second part of the dissertation, I combine archival and qualitative methods to explore how these four cities' governments have affected specific conflicts over urban land. In each city, I focus on areas where squatters and elites compete for the same urban spaces, exploring four dimensions of land conflicts: state alliances, state coherence, conflict resolution, and spatial outcomes. The findings confirm that city governments do matter in conflicts over urban land and that they vary widely in how they intervene (or refrain from intervening) in those disputes. Through a comparative analysis of these four cases, I propose a new typology of urban governance based on interest representation and urban intervention. The typology yields four ideal types: the Market City, the Frustrated City, the Embedded City, and the Captured City. Finally, I use this typology to re-evaluate the meaning of 'good governance' at the level of the city, arguing that increasing local state efficiency and fostering growth without attention to redistribution increases social exclusion in the city.