The dissertation Who does the Lapa live is us: imaginary and gentrification of the four letters district intends to address the imaginary construction of the Lapa neighborhood in the city of Rio de Janeiro, in order to understand what the imaginary role in gentrification processes and this neighborhood like this, the imaginary, survives in discursive expressions today. To achieve the objectives of this work, in view of the urban imaginary exist from collective constructions, we chose to examine some discursive expressions, as literary works - the Lapa books, Oswaldo Martins; Lapa Lapa and Night, Luis Martins; Lips that kissed, Agnaldo Silva - the anthologies Gasparino Da Mata and Isabel Lustosa; some songs; some film productions as LAPA documentary, Cavi Borges and Emilio Domingos, the film Madame Satan, Karim Ainouz, and interviews with the musician Pedro Miranda, former member of the Seed Group, and the journalist Bruno Maia.