Preparing for Olympics, Rio plans to raze favelas

Posted By Jennifer T. Parker Thursday, July 29, 2010 - 3:28 PM Share

Rio de Janeiro is undertaking a significant rebuilding and reconstruction effort before the 2016 Summer Olympics. The city will raze over 100 of the most "at risk" favelas and rebuild hundreds of others. According to the mayor of Rio, Eduardo Paes, about 13,000 families will be forced from their homes - and it's unclear where the people will be relocated and if they will be compensated.

For the local population, the Olympics are rarely about fun and games. In the last twenty years, the Olympics have displaced over 20 million people, despite the fact that international law stipulates protection from forcible eviction. People are either removed from their homes by the government or priced out: 720,000 at the Seoul Olympics; hundreds of families in Barcelona; 30,000 Atlantans; hundreds of Roma settlers in Athens; and 1.5 million people in Beijing.

Time to "think again"?

VANDERLEI ALMEIDA/AFP/Getty Images

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GRANT

9:33 PM ET

July 29, 2010

I seem to recall a similar

I seem to recall a similar measure occurring when the Pope visited in 1997. I wonder if the city authorities quite understand the intended meaning of these things.

GUARANI

10:56 PM ET

August 1, 2010

This article is a little one

This article is a little one sided and misses the bigger picture.

At the moment I'm doing research on the favelas in Rio and though its true the olympic games are going to be a burden on the population, it has already brought a lot of good.

For one, many of the people that will be removed from the favelas will be removed due to risk (if you haven't heard there was a horrible rain storm this year that caused several landslides in some favelas causing many deaths) and the city government has decided to do something about it.

Plus, as opposed to earlier relocations, where favela residents were forced either out without any form of remuneration or without some form of shelter, this time the residents (some have already been removed and others are in the process) are being paid the "aluguel social" (a monthly stipend until they are relocated) plus being provided with new homes, many close to where already live, so that their lives are not further disrupted.

And the new Unidades de Policia Pacificadoras (a new form of community policing) have been showing a lot of promise, lessening crime in the favelas dramatically, (in the Dona Marta favela, one of the first to receive a UPP, it has eliminated all heavy crime)

I think that for the city in general has benefited from the impetus provided by the olympics and the 2014 world cup (more and better policing, many many infrastructure projects, and many revitalization projects for the city) and the poorer segments in particular will see many more improvements up to the world cup. The problem is if they will continue after the cup and after this administration, which traditionally is not the case. The budget for all of these projects (just for the favelas it will cost several billion reais) is also going to make the continuation hard

GAOLIN

8:40 PM ET

August 22, 2010

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GAOLIN

8:44 PM ET

August 22, 2010

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