{"id":145,"date":"2010-07-29T10:00:37","date_gmt":"2010-07-29T13:00:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/?p=145"},"modified":"2016-05-04T20:27:28","modified_gmt":"2016-05-04T23:27:28","slug":"the-2016-olympics-a-win-for-rio-part-45","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/?p=145","title":{"rendered":"The 2016 Olympics: A Win for Rio? (Part 4\/5)"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Streets
Streets of Vila Aut\u00f3dromo<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The international press has provided positive coverage for several recent City and State initiatives. The community policing units, or \u201cUPPs\u201d have been successfully installed thanks to a State program in 9 favelas, driving out drug lords and providing a sense of calm, thanks to a more humane, well-trained and funded youthful community policing force. The federal government\u2019s Growth Acceleration Program (PAC) has brought heavy investments in infrastructure to a handful of favelas. Attention is being paid to improved public transportation, ranging from expansion of the metro and Bus Rapid Transit, to teleferic cars providing free trips up steep favelas. The city is investing heavily in the 150 worst performing public schools with special science programs, computers, and more.<\/p>\n

All of this sounds great to those who are not familiar with the diversity of Rio\u2019s favelas. The large communities are all benefitting from such investments. Yet, the smaller communities, even older ones like Vila Aut\u00f3dromo that hold title, are at risk of full removal. They don\u2019t hold many votes. They don\u2019t \u201cappear\u201d in the newspapers (they are safe, remember?). Ironically, Vila Aut\u00f3dromo and its neighbors\u2014the communities most at risk from the Olympics, are all peaceful.<\/p>\n

What do residents want to see? In short, as the public defenders\u2019 notification states: \u201cIt is clear that residents do not want to be removed. On the contrary, they claim the right to upgrades and public investment.\u201d Planners who visit the community comment about how fairly easy it would be to upgrade the neighborhood, given support from residents, lack of drug lords, the community\u2019s wide roads and 90% of homes made of brick. In fact, fewer than 50 homes had any flooding during the intense April 2010 rains that hit Rio de Janeiro. And less than 5 were severe.<\/p>\n

\"Homes
Homes gradually improved over decades<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

What, one might ask, is so critical about this site that makes its removal for the Olympics such a priority? Well, apparently even the Mayor can\u2019t handle this question. In October, he announced the site would be used to build the Olympics Media Facility. But months later plans changed. The City has now decided to move several facilities to the Port Area the Mayor seeks to revitalize. When asked if this affects Vila Aut\u00f3dromo, municipal officials told me straight up, \u201cno.\u201d The most recent map shows essentially nothing built in the area. It simply needs to be maintained as part of the \u201csecurity perimeter\u201d for the Olympic venues.<\/p>\n

But if that is the case, why are luxury condos going up just as close\u2014across the street in fact\u2014with a \u201cbox seat\u201d view of the Olympic venues? And why not simply provide residents with \u201csocial rent,\u201d the R$500\/month the city regularly gives residents of other areas when they are removed from their homes and awaiting resettlement, during the 3 weeks of the Games? Or why not get rid of the \u201ceyesore\u201d by doing what residents request and upgrading this essentially lower middle class, up-and-coming community, which has proved its ability to coexist peacefully with major events ranging from the Formula 1 to Rock in Rio? Or why not be really creative and potentially develop a model for all future Olympics bids, involving residents directly? Engage them as workers, welcoming agents, or encouraging small businesses to cater to tourists? Wouldn\u2019t these be a more just way of handling a community that has contributed so much to the city without costing it a dime, against all constraints?<\/p>\n

Wouldn\u2019t these speak better to the Olympic values of hope, excellence, respect, harmony and friendship? What about to the Olympics new \u201cDevelopment Through Sport\u201d initiative that \u201cput(s) human beings first?\u201d<\/p>\n

The only explanation for the lack of creativity, transparency, and willingness to dialogue and compromise shown by the City on this issue is its desire to maximize real estate speculation in the area. The community is not only a \u201cblemish\u201d which in and of itself will reduce values in the vicinity, but it also occupies a very valuable piece of land, which after the Olympics, can be developed. And all this on the edge of Jacarepagu\u00e1 Lagoon, which will be cleaned up as part of the environmental legacy of the Games. The area will be Rio\u2019s \u201cnew Lagoa,\u201d in reference to the Rodrigo de Freitas Lagoon, where currently real estate is most valuable. Vila Aut\u00f3dromo is seen as an impediment to this development.<\/p>\n

In the meantime, public defenders have invested so much energy on Vila Aut\u00f3dromo\u2019s case, taking legal action as well as notifying the IOC with a detailed 78-page document including technical overview, because they fear this community\u2019s removal would open the floodgates for forced evictions across the city. In fact, in October when the news media announced Vila Aut\u00f3dromo\u2019s impending removal, it was cited as first of a list of 9. Within a week the City had retracted the list, claiming the intention to remove only this community. According to activists, this is a way of weakening the joint response that would have unfolded. When Vila Aut\u00f3dromo goes down, the precedent will be set, reversing decades of hard won housing rights legislation.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cThe 2016 Olympics: A Win For Rio?\u201d<\/strong> is a five-part series by Theresa Williamson.
\nCheck out part 1<\/a>, part 2<\/a>, part 3<\/a> and part 5<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The international press has provided positive coverage for several recent City and State initiatives. The community policing units, or \u201cUPPs\u201d have been successfully installed thanks to a State program in 9 favelas, driving out drug […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":146,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1736,335,336],"tags":[9,11,205,5,1781,15,341,10,4],"writer":[51],"translator":[],"illustrator":[],"photographer":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-145","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-1736","8":"category-policies","9":"category-violations","10":"tag-9","11":"tag-forced-evictions","12":"tag-growth-acceleration-program-pac","13":"tag-olympics","14":"tag-opinion-2","15":"tag-pacifying-police-unit","16":"tag-peaceful-community","17":"tag-real-estate-speculation","18":"tag-vila-autodromo","19":"writer-theresa-williamson"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=145"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/146"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=145"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=145"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=145"},{"taxonomy":"writer","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fwriter&post=145"},{"taxonomy":"translator","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftranslator&post=145"},{"taxonomy":"illustrator","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fillustrator&post=145"},{"taxonomy":"photographer","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fphotographer&post=145"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}