Posts tagged real estate speculation
Life in the Favela: Public Security Debated in Maré
May 14th
“What is this ‘pacification’ that is coming?” challenged favela residents last Saturday May 11th at a debate on public security in Maré. For weeks, the group of communities has been undergoing daily raids by the BOPE (Special Operations Police Battalion) in a government effort to prepare the area for the installation of the Police Pacifying Units (UPPs). The process includes illegal searches of homes without individual warrants and operations involving helicopters and armored tanks.
“The discourse from the state and from the commercial media [surrounding pacification] is a big lie,” explained Gizele Martins, coordinator and journalist at Maré’s 13-year-old community newspaper O Cidadão. More >
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 >
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 >
Vila Autódromo Under Pressure from City to Accept Resettlement Housing
Mar 22nd
“We are here today because the Prefeitura (City government) is putting psychological pressure [on the residents of Vila Autódromo],” explained Lucia Cerqueira, a representative of the Catholic Church community organizing group Pastoral de Favelas in Jacarepaguá. The Pastoral and others from a network that includes public defenders, housing rights organizations and journalists, responded to an urgent request on Monday, March 4th to mobilize in light of the “battalion” of city employees who have been ceaselessly going door-to-door attempting to convince residents to sign up for the “Parque Carioca” resettlement housing currently under construction.
Vila Autódromo is a community with a long history of More >
