Posts tagged history
Evictions, Gentrification & Displacement: Three Short Docs on the Forces Shaping Rio Today [VIDEOS]
May 9th
Right now in Rio, favela residents across the city are being forced out of their homes and communities. Tens of thousands of families are having to leave their self-built homes, often of decades, due to direct state intervention where residents are told they are being removed for mega-event developments or because they are in “risk areas,” or due to the more subtle forces of real estate speculation and gentrification whereby residents can no longer afford to live in their own communities. Both types of eviction mean residents must move out to peripheral, underserved areas of the city, where land is cheaper, new favelas More >
“My House” in the Land of the Interest-free Car
Apr 29th
For the original article in Portuguese by Sérgio Magalhães* in O Globo, click here.
Troubled by the quality of construction of projects in the Minha Casa Minha Vida (MCMV, or My House My Life federal housing program), President Dilma Rousseff declared, “I wasn’t elected to give the people shoddy housing.”
The great demographic expansion and territorial occupation that characterize Brazil today date back to the middle of the last century. The cities bore the weight of the population growth and brought marked improvements in social indicators. In seventy years, the urban population has grown from 12 million to 170 million. And urban homes have More >
Voices of Vila Autódromo: José Arimateia, the Baker
Apr 23rd
In 1986, the newlywed José Arimateia moved to Vila Autódromo to buy his first home and to start a family. He moved from his parents’ house in a neighboring community, Vila Sapê, though he was born in Paraíba. He and his wife, Maria das Dores Catanduba de Andrade, were the first of their families to move to Vila Autódromo, a small favela in Rio’s West Zone, which they chose for its safety and peacefulness. Now, 27 years later, their success and happiness have drawn a dozen family members to move to their beloved community.
When José first moved to Vila Autódromo, he More >
A History of Favela Upgrades Part III: Morar Carioca in Vision and Practice (2008 – Present)
Apr 2nd
This is Part 3 of a three-part series on the History of Favela Upgrades in Rio. Click for Part 1 and Part 2.
The cable car in Complexo de Alemão, opened in 2011, was funded through the federal Growth Acceleration Program (PAC).
In Rio, the end of the 2000s brought a trickle of funding to a few delayed upgrading projects from the Favela-Bairro program and its spinoffs, the Bairrinho and Grandes Favelas programs. During this time the federal Growth Acceleration Program (PAC) began to install public works in favelas as well. These tended to be attention-grabbing projects and those visible from the edges of communities such as the cable car in Complexo More >
Visions of Urban Space at Cais do Valongo Capoeira Circle
Mar 29th
For original article in Portuguese by Ricardo Nascimento in Jogo de Mandingo click here.
A vision of the tropical paradise
The city of Rio de Janeiro has always been the postcard image for Brazil. A significant portion of the symbols of Brazilianness that now form part of the Brazilian imagination and circulate around the consumer-driven globe comes from Rio. The Rio Carnival, samba, Christ the Redeemer, football; all of these elements contribute to the entertainment and leisure industry at an international level.
Hermano Viana, in his book ‘The Mystery of Samba’, highlights a historic encounter which occurred in Rio in the early twentieth More >
