This doctoral thesis aims to define directives for the development of a recovery policy of social residential compounds, basing the analysis on their problems and the interventions that occurred in these areas in Spain, France and Brazil, and trying to define what is the public administration responsibility in facing the problems that affect these areas. The residential compounds - called respectively grands ensembles and polígonos de vivienda social in France and Spain - in the three analyzed countries, were a result of an intense constructive process of social housing, which was a consequence of a period marked by economic growth and a huge accumulated housing deficit. The construction processes of these areas and their following evolution until recently generated a series of problems that demand firm action for an effective solution. A previous view of recovery policies and actions of residential compounds showed interventions that, traditionally, were palliative and specially centered in building suitability, construction of social equipment or in point interventions for the improvement of urban configuration, and did not focus at a whole view of the problems that affect these areas. The present study is based on the hypothesis that interventions focused on the physical recovery of residential compounds is not the effective solution for their actual problems, and it aims to identify which is the policy amplitude to be formulated and implemented. In this way, the study developed here aims at a new perspective of recovery policy, which is not centered only on the solution of physical problems that arise at the urban level and construction, but also on actions that focus on global social and economic problems that affect these areas.The confrontation of the cited dimensions and the contraposition of the analyzed experiences allow establishing a series of references for the subject in question. Therefore, the thesis departs form the identification and comprehension of problems, followed by the analysis of interventions that were already done and, at last, defines the directives for a policy recovery of social residential compounds and the respective management model. The differences between the development levels of public policies of the European and Brazilian contexts allowed, because of the greater level of development of those in Spain and France, to look for subsides for the proposition of a recovery policy for Brazil. Thus, the thesis structure is based on three successive parts. The first develops the analysis and characterization of the study object - the residential compounds - in the three countries, pointing similarities and differences of their problematic, focusing the housing policies that originated them, the urban model adopted by them and the urban and social result, and its evolution until now. Based on this analysis a common ground of problems is defined, which should be confronted by the recovery policies of these areas in the three referred countries. In the second part of the study, the recovery experiences of residential compounds in Spain and France are analysed, defining a reference ground of domains, strategies, intervention lines and basic actions that should form an effective recovery policy pf residential compounds in the European context, as directives for a management model suited for its complexity. In the third part, directives are proposed for a recovery policy of residential compounds in Brazil, departing from the analysis of implementation possibilities of the reference ground proposed for the European context to the Brazilian reality. Hence, the development level of public policies in Brazil and the urban, economic and social context that support them are taken in account.