{"id":17687,"date":"2014-09-10T12:20:34","date_gmt":"2014-09-10T15:20:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rioonwatch.org\/?p=17687"},"modified":"2016-12-22T19:09:06","modified_gmt":"2016-12-22T22:09:06","slug":"morar-carioca-the-dismantling-of-a-dream-favela-upgrading-program","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/?p=17687","title":{"rendered":"Morar Carioca: The Dismantling of a Dream Favela Upgrading Program"},"content":{"rendered":"

Clique aqui para Portugu\u00eas\"\"<\/em><\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

This article is a revised version of a paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the Association of American Geographers (Tampa, FL. April 2014)<\/i><\/p>\n

An architect recently described the Morar Carioca program<\/a> as \u201cthe greatest unfulfilled promise\u201d in Rio de Janeiro. Over the past few years, we have seen this ambitious and visionary favela urbanization<\/a> project get packaged into the Olympic legacy framework, co-opted by political interests, and then abruptly dismantled without sufficient explanation.<\/p>\n

In 2010, Mayor Eduardo Paes<\/a> included the Morar Carioca program as a centerpiece of the social legacy for the 2016 Olympic Games<\/a>. Formally an extension of the Favela-Bairro program<\/a>, Morar Carioca would have been the most comprehensive program of its kind in the city\u2019s history, building upon a generation of accumulated architectural and technical expertise. Through participatory on-site favela upgrading and with a budget of R$8 billion, the program pledged to integrate every favela into the formal city by the year 2020<\/a>. The large-scale works would include the improvement of sanitation<\/a> systems, installation of water drainage systems, street lighting, road surfacing, the construction of public green spaces and recreational areas, improvement of transportation networks, home stabilization, and the construction of social service centers.<\/p>\n

\u201cMorar Carioca, as it is written on paper, is an urban planner\u2019s dream for favelas,\u201d said\u00a0Theresa Williamson, urban planner and director of the NGO Catalytic Communities<\/a>. The plan includes an impressive participatory model, on-site upgrading that recognizes prior investments made by residents, a focus on sustainability, and special \u201csocial interest\u201d zoning parameters to maintain areas for affordable housing. \u201cThis would have been a real legacy<\/a>, not only for Rio but [as a model] for cities around the world,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n

Anthropologist Mariana Cavalcanti describes the launch of the program in 2010 as \u201ca very hopeful and optimistic time\u201d in which a series of emerging social, infrastructural, housing, and policing programs in favelas promised to radically transform Rio de Janeiro. During field research in 2012, architects and urban planners expressed a sense of urgency and excitement. They envisioned that the Morar Carioca program would redress disparities in urban infrastructure and service provision, imagining the ways that urban design could alter patterns of spatial segregation and social exclusion in the \u201cdivided city.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

In December 2010, the results of the Institute of Brazilian Architects (IAB)<\/a> design contest were announced and 40 architecture firms were selected to intervene in designated favela \u201cgroupings.\u201d The first group of eleven firms were contracted in June 2012<\/a> and began performing qualitative diagnostics in the communities with the support of iBase<\/a>, an NGO that was contracted by the Municipal Secretary of Housing (SMH)<\/a> to hold participatory meetings and collect residents\u2019 demands. But suddenly and without warning, the City cut iBase\u2019s contract in January 2013, financially dismantling the projects<\/a> and leaving SMH without an effective methodology to communicate with the communities.<\/p>\n

Within a few years of the program launch, \u201cthe whole set up unraveled,\u201d Cavalcanti recalls, as Morar Carioca was dismantled and its brand re-appropriated<\/a> to serve other political purposes.<\/p>\n

The weakening of a dream<\/h3>\n

Two years ago, the Mayor proclaimed that urbanizing all the favelas of Rio de Janeiro by 2020 would be a central aspect of the Olympic legacy. He promoted this message to an international audience during an April 2012 TED talk<\/a>, in which he proclaimed that \u201cthe city of the future has to be socially integrated\u201d and explaining that \u201cfavelas are sometimes a solution.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNow he is not saying this anymore<\/a>,\u201d said\u00a0Pedro da Luz Moreira, former program coordinator and current president of the IAB’s Rio de Janeiro chapter. There has been an \u201cemptying of the program and a weakening of its capacity.\u201d<\/p>\n

In January and February of 2014, I conducted a series of follow-up interviews to discover the \u201cofficial response\u201d to the question: what happened to Morar Carioca? Although fragmented versions of the project are still underway\u2014including a re-appropriation of the program label<\/a> onto a series of interventions that do not adhere to the participation methodology\u2014the original vision to integrate the city\u2019s\u00a0favelas as part of the Olympic legacy appears to have failed, given that funding and participatory structures were oriented around the 2016 deadline.<\/p>\n

\"Mayor<\/p>\n

When Mayor Paes was questioned about Morar Carioca at an event in 2013<\/a>, he cited lack of financial resources. But follow-up interviews with architects and urban planners offered more cynical explanations, often coded in the language of shifting political agendas, balancing priorities and competing interests.<\/p>\n

Pedro da Luz Moreira stated that Morar Carioca \u201cwas taken off the political agenda,\u201d describing a Mayor who abandons a project based on his political purposes. Interviewees described a series of \u201cbottlenecks\u201d that impeded the program, which ultimately resulted in \u201ca revision of Morar Carioca and its goals,\u201d as one respondent tactfully explained.<\/p>\n

Ant\u00f4nio Augusto Ver\u00edssimo, former Coordinator of Planning and Projects for SMH, explained, \u201cWe (SMH) didn\u2019t make the decision\u2026 all orders to suspend [the contracts] came from the top down. It was a direct order from the Mayor.\u201d When asked about the remaining architecture firms, he added carefully, \u201cWe did not have a green light from the Mayor to contract the rest of the teams,\u201d describing a \u201cdeceleration\u201d of the program as money was diverted to other agendas.<\/p>\n

Several critics suggested a connection between the most active months of the Morar Carioca program and the Mayor\u2019s reelection campaign in late 2012, during which he frequently promoted the Morar Carioca program. Anthropologist Mariana Cavalcanti imagined that the Mayor suddenly woke up after his reelection and felt the pressure of the 2016 deadline, causing him to readjust his priorities. But she added that the Mayor has right-wing instincts and that \u201cMorar Carioca is nowhere near top of his priorities.\u201d<\/p>\n

Even now, explanations for the program\u2019s dismantling remain murky to those who seek comprehensive information about the program and encounter a description on the\u00a0Olympic City website<\/a> that calls the Morar Carioca program \u201ca true revolution in terms of social integration,\u201d and still identifies the program as one of the most important Olympic legacies in the city. What remains apparent is that an ambitious program that boasted community participation<\/a> and citywide integration was dismantled in the absence of dialogue and\u00a0transparency.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, despite minimal\u00a0implementation, Morar Carioca\u00a0won<\/a><\/span>\u00a0the Siemens Sustainable Community Award<\/a>, and the Mayor himself<\/a> are being celebrated internationally, evidencing the successful media campaigns that have obscured\u00a0the sad reality of the program\u2019s dismantling.<\/span><\/p>\n

Lack of “political will”<\/h3>\n

Several respondents understood the shelving of the program<\/a> as the harsh reality of local politics: the Mayor is committed to a series of interests, while managing the temporal, financial, and spatial requirements of a massive quantity of public works in the lead up to the next international sporting event. But these justifications are insufficient for those communities that received the participatory phase of Morar Carioca and are now being slated for removal.<\/p>\n

Vila Uni\u00e3o de Curicica<\/a> is one such community that went from hope for urbanization under Morar Carioca to the threat of complete removal for the Bus Rapid Transit system<\/a> (BRT – a system being implemented for the 2016 Olympics)\u00a0in just two years. Mariana Cavalcanti was an anthropologist with the firm contracted to intervene in the cluster of eight\u00a0favelas located in Jacarepagu\u00e1, West Zone. She suggests\u00a0that the firm\u2019s contract was abruptly cancelled because the City realized its political miscalculation in deciding to upgrade these favelas near the future Olympic site. It would be easier to cut the contract and remove these invisible communities \u201csilently and disconnectedly,\u201d instead of with the Morar Carioca spotlight and the program\u2019s stringent resettlement guidelines.<\/p>\n

Cavalcanti asserts that Morar Carioca was not\u2014as several critics have suggested\u2014a guise to legitimize evictions<\/a>. Instead, she argues that housing removals ended up being more urgent to the Olympic project than participatory upgrading.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is no time left for social diagnostic. Now [in 2014] they just have to get those people out of there really fast and Morar Carioca gets in the way of their urban planning needs because it was so well-designed.\u201d<\/p>\n

Architects and urban planners maintain their inspiring vision for Morar Carioca: a program that expands upon Favela-Bairro by emphasizing a participation methodology, consistent and equitable service provision, and long-term maintenance of projects. Ver\u00edssimo described the original Morar Carioca program as a \u201crevolutionary\u201d model that would have transformed the city.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a vision we cultivated for a time, but the reality shows it wasn\u2019t possible,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Mr. da Luz Moreira affirmed that the idea behind Morar Carioca continues, even though the program itself was \u201cemptied,\u201d concluding: \u201cWe are not finding the effective political will to implement [these projects].\u201d<\/p>\n

Demanding “FIFA quality” housing<\/h3>\n

The dismantling of the Morar Carioca program provides us with a critical reflection on the \u201clegacy\u201d framework<\/a> frequently used to legitimize event-staging. The juxtaposition between Morar Carioca\u2019s visionary model and its failed implementation provide an important example for urban leaders considering the Olympics as a catalyst for development initiatives. It provides a clear example of what Hayes and Karamichas<\/a> have described as \u201cthe seemingly ever-increasing disconnect between [mega-events’<\/a>] top-down, elite, nature and the ostensible redistributive and participatory agendas staked out by their governance regimes.\u201d<\/p>\n

Many of the tensions inherent to the \u201clegacy\u201d framework were evident before Morar Carioca\u2019s failed implementation. The geographic priorities of the IOC would inevitably have confronted the wide-sweeping vision of local urban planners. The temporal constraints of the 2016<\/a> deadline and the aesthetic requirements of the Olympic project were certain to override the slow pace of community participation and prosaic demands such as sewage systems. Additionally, the entrepreneurial strategies followed by leaders to become a \u201cglobal city<\/a>\u201d are not cohesive with placing favela upgrading in an international spotlight. And the goals of political elites are tied up with private interests that are incompatible with redistributive projects and principles.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

In June of 2013, protesters took to the streets to demand the right to the city<\/a>. They called for participatory processes and democratic management in a city increasingly being sold to real estate interests behind closed doors. They expressed anger at the \u201csociety of the spectacle\u201d when demanding \u201cFIFA quality\u201d public services, such as health, education, and transportation. Finally, many protesters articulated the right to dignified housing and an end to the practice of forced removals in the name of sporting events.<\/p>\n

The tensions inherent to the Morar Carioca program\u2014coupled with the reality of its failed implementation\u2014speak to many of these themes. In this moment of accelerated urban transformation in Rio de Janeiro\u2014in which the rhetoric of \u201clegacy\u201d will be wielded to justify a series of exclusionary projects\u2014it is time to demand that Morar Carioca return to the negotiating table.<\/p>\n

Kate Steiker-Ginzberg began researching the Morar Carioca program for her 2012 undergraduate thesis at Columbia University. Since then she has been living in Rio de Janeiro and continued research and writing about the impact of mega-events in the city.\u00a0<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Clique aqui para Portugu\u00eas This article is a revised version of a paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the Association of American Geographers (Tampa, FL. April 2014) An architect recently described the Morar Carioca […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":27,"featured_media":17690,"comment_status":"closed","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":[1736,1288,335,1282,329,452,328,1329],"tags":[9,272,11,65,282,26,634,327,1259,147,5,152,744,374,1616,1402,158,980,206,592,365],"writer":[1770],"translator":[],"illustrator":[],"photographer":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-17687","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-1736","8":"category-highlight","9":"category-policies","10":"category-research-analysis","11":"category-solutions","12":"category-rio20","13":"category-understanding-rio","14":"category-by-international-observers","15":"tag-9","16":"tag-mayor-eduardo-paes","17":"tag-forced-evictions","18":"tag-gentrification","19":"tag-housing","20":"tag-housing-rights","21":"tag-ibase","22":"tag-legacy-myth","23":"tag-mega-events","24":"tag-morar-carioca","25":"tag-olympics","26":"tag-participation","27":"tag-policy-critique","28":"tag-politics","29":"tag-reference","30":"tag-legacy","31":"tag-smh","32":"tag-social-legacy","33":"tag-upgrading","34":"tag-vila-uniao-de-curicica","35":"tag-zero-participation","36":"writer-kate-steiker-ginzberg"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17687","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\/27"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=17687"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17687\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/17690"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=17687"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=17687"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=17687"},{"taxonomy":"writer","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fwriter&post=17687"},{"taxonomy":"translator","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftranslator&post=17687"},{"taxonomy":"illustrator","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fillustrator&post=17687"},{"taxonomy":"photographer","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fphotographer&post=17687"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}