{"id":150,"date":"2010-07-30T10:00:06","date_gmt":"2010-07-30T13:00:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/?p=150"},"modified":"2016-05-04T20:26:48","modified_gmt":"2016-05-04T23:26:48","slug":"the-2016-olympics-a-win-for-rio-part-55","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/?p=150","title":{"rendered":"The 2016 Olympics: A Win for Rio? (Part 5\/5)"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Jane<\/a>
Jane Nascimento, one Vila Aut\u00f3dromo<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In their public presentations regarding the need for resettlement of \u201careas at risk” (of landslides and floods), the Mayor\u2019s team focuses mainly on \u201cguaranteeing safety,\u201d and on peoples\u2019 desire to have a roof over their heads. To their defense, unlike their predecessors, they are also paying attention to other factors, like access to transportation and jobs. That is an advance. Yet no municipal official mentions culture, community, or architecture.<\/p>\n

Yet even in the communities \u201cat risk,\u201d there are many that insist on staying. In fact, the city\u2019s public defenders successfully barred the municipal government from removing residents along a streambed in Acari favela in June. Acari suffers from the worst human development index rankings of any community in Rio, and has notoriously bad drug trafficking. Yet many residents along its streambed insist on staying despite regular floods of up to 5 meters in their homes. If people in the worst of circumstances don\u2019t want to leave, why would residents of Vila Aut\u00f3dromo?<\/p>\n

Why, despite the risk, don\u2019t people want to leave, even if the city provides homes, access to transportation and jobs? There are 5 factors at play here:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Trauma \u2013 during the 1960s and 197-0s forced evictions were common, and communities to this day are traumatized by an aggressive, undemocratic process that sent them far from their previous neighborhoods and their jobs, reducing their income while increasing costs associated with transport.<\/li>\n
  2. Culture \u2013 some communities are marked by an intense and rich extremely localized culture, the product of several generations of residents.<\/li>\n
  3. Community \u2013 the social fabric and strong ties inherent in a community are almost impossible to transfer.<\/li>\n
  4. Architecture \u2013 little attention is paid to the fact that homes in favelas are custom built by residents to suit their family\u2019s individual needs, over decades, providing diversity of use and opportunity for customization and future change, as well as the healthy attachment (and commitment) to place associated with self-built neighborhoods.<\/li>\n
  5. Participation \u2013 without effective vehicles for true participation in planning, trust will not be fostered to the point where people will be willing to take a risk, even when it is in the interest of their security.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    These communities are, in essence, New Urbanist. And little attention is paid to the quality of the housing that is being demolished\u2014unique houses designed slowly, over time, to suit individual needs of families. In the case of Vila Aut\u00f3dromo, the bulk of residents have successfully built high quality homes, they are in an expanding part of the city with access to jobs. They have built businesses in Vila Autodromo and neighboring communities. They know their neighbors. They do not suffer drug trafficking.<\/p>\n

    \"Academics
    Academics from across the world have visited and worked with Vila Aut\u00f3dromo residents<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

    Due to a historic class rift in Rio, the \u201cDivided City,\u201d as it is known, between the \u201cfavelas and asphalt\u201d as the debate here is summarized, there is no comprehension on the part of the city\u2019s elite that what constitutes \u201clife in the favela\u201d is not all bad. The cultural wealth, architectural innovation, and strong sense of community in these spaces is entirely ignored when making plans to remove them. Perhaps because the \u201celite\u201d parts of the city are notoriously lacking in these attributes. And their ability to participate effectively is severely underestimated.<\/p>\n

    Lula tells us that \u201cthis country deserves a chance.\u201d The question now is what it will do with this chance. Build on the cultural wealth of this unique city\u2014develop economically while recognizing the value of the social fabric and sense of community in the favelas, nurturing the city\u2019s natural environment, and welcoming the cultural riches unique to its minority residents\u2014or, as is being signaled through Paes\u2019 actions, strengthen the market at any cost, measuring development through economic growth and crime declines alone, regardless of whether the end result is cultural sterility. If the current approach goes forward, there is a serious risk that the cultural marvels Lula declares as having attracted interest from the IOC will be commoditized by 2016.<\/p>\n

    As Lula put it in his remarks, \u201cThese Olympics are retribution to the marvelous people of Rio de Janeiro, that many times show up only in newspapers.\u201d That\u2019s some food for thought.<\/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 4<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    In their public presentations regarding the need for resettlement of \u201careas at risk” (of landslides and floods), the Mayor\u2019s team focuses mainly on \u201cguaranteeing safety,\u201d and on peoples\u2019 desire to have a roof over their […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":152,"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":[9,342,221,11,344,5,1781,152,343,4],"writer":[51],"translator":[],"illustrator":[],"photographer":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-150","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-favela-architecture","12":"tag-favela-culture","13":"tag-forced-evictions","14":"tag-new-urbanism","15":"tag-olympics","16":"tag-opinion-2","17":"tag-participation","18":"tag-trauma","19":"tag-vila-autodromo","20":"writer-theresa-williamson"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/150","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=150"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/150\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/152"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=150"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=150"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=150"},{"taxonomy":"writer","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fwriter&post=150"},{"taxonomy":"translator","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftranslator&post=150"},{"taxonomy":"illustrator","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fillustrator&post=150"},{"taxonomy":"photographer","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fphotographer&post=150"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}