Rio de Janeiro sits in the global imagination as the Cidade Maravilhosa (Marvellous City), a city of sun and dance. Christ the Redeemer watches over the dramatic peaks that break into the Atlantic Ocean. The Carnival brings the city alive and informality plays into the dreamy metropolis by the sea. Rio is the city of golden sunrises, of futebol (soccer) and bikinis on the beach, of smiles, of Copacabana, of the Maracanã. Yet Rio de Janeiro is also a city of poverty and contrast. It is as perilous as it is graceful. It is crime-ridden and conflicted. People live in luxury as much as they live in frustration. Rio is a city of segregation, where favelas are erased from the official city maps and dealt with by a different government department housed in a building across the city. Twenty percent of the city’s residents are underdogs, the favelados (favela residents).
In this city of stark differences, favelas became melting pots of crime, gang violence and the drug trade. Dispossessed communities struggled to stay afloat for decades, surviving within the informal economy as the city thrived alongside. It was not until the turn of the 20th century, when the city had lost control of its favelas, that the government intervened. Since then, Rio de Janeiro has struggled to reconcile its duality in an attempt to form one cohesive city that can erase the differentiation between asfalto (main city) and favela.
The Police Pacification Units (UPP), special forces deployed to purge the favelas of organised crime, stormed into one favela after the next in the late 2000s. After an initial bloodbath, the gangs were driven out and the UPPs evolved to become community police forces. Supporting them was the UPP-Social, which focused on community building through social services and facilities to ensure that residents did not return to crime. The role of the UPP programme has been much debated. It has been criticised as ‘disguised gentrification’, especially in light of the Rio 2016 Summer Olympics. Yet the work it has done for favela communities is a step in the right direction that the city of Rio had postponed for too long.
The story of Santa Marta
The occupation of the Santa Marta favela dates back to the late 1930s. Rural migrants settled at the top of the morro (rocky hills) where their clandestine dwellings could hide from the government’s sight. The area was initially accessed through a back road at the top of the hill, through the neighbourhood of Laranjeiras. The favela developed downhill throughout the years, extending into Rua São Clemente in the asfalto neighbourhood of Botafogo.
As Santa Marta expanded during the 1960s and ’70s, its population boomed. The government deliberately did not invest in urban infrastructure for the favelas. Policymakers at the time sought to dismantle informal settlements across the city, and thus kept living conditions precarious. Electricity came to Santa Marta by coincidence in 1979 and favela dwellers rushed to illegally tap into the connection. Other elements of the favela’s urban infrastructure followed a similar trend, acquired organically through unorthodox means.
The 1980s brought drug trafficking to the favelas of Rio de Janeiro. Santa Marta was no exception. A general dislike for the police coupled with the readiness of drug lords to concede to community requests turned favelas into ideal hideaways for criminal activity. The situation worsened and by the year 2000 several of Rio de Janeiro’s favelas had gotten out of hand.
The government piloted the ‘pacification process’ in Santa Marta in 2008. The police took over the favela and expelled drug gangs and criminals in a flash operation working alongside the national army. The UPP then established three dedicated monitoring stations throughout the hill, linking to the city’s police network. The UPP-Social followed, providing social infrastructure that would prevent favela residents from engaging in crime and the drug trade.
Santa Marta circa 2008
In 2011, I walked up to Praça Corumba on Rua São Clemente. It had only been three years since the UPP had established its pilot programme. Three young people sat under a tent in the square offering favela tours. One of them was Gilson Fumaça, a 20-something-year-old man who showed me around the favela that he proudly
calls home.
Santa Marta is divided into three parts, each of which reflects a different stage of its development. The bottom, closer to the formal city, has access to vehicular roads through Rua São Clemente. It has grocery shops, a healthcare centre, a bank and a crèche run by the UPP-Social. It also has a UPP station and Haas&Hahn’s Praça Cantão, made famous by their colourful Favela Painting Project. Most of these did not exist before 2008. Shops that now sell beer late into the night would shut by sundown and until 2010 Praça Cantão was a dead-end parking lot. The gangs had established the rule of law and the police dared not enter.
‘Pacification’ brought peace, but more than that it brought community
‘Pacification’ brought peace, but more than that it brought community. Since 2008, the city government has invested in infrastructure to connect the middle and top parts of the favela with the rest of the city. Interventions include the paving of stairways and paths, and sewage and water networks that improve sanitation. A series of educational centres and leisure spaces contribute to the favela’s enhanced social infrastructure. These places, where the community gets together in the evenings and on weekends, include a samba school, churches of different faiths and a number of Internet cafés.
In 2010, the government funded the construction of a funicular tram that runs along the favela’s steep eastern edge. The funicular has served to integrate the top two sections of the morro to the city below. Intermediate tram stops are connected to a host of snack bars, bakeries and beauty parlours. The now-active paths lead to a sports facility on the western edge, through the iconic Praça Michael Jackson. The community uses these places – both with unbeatable views of Copacabana beach – to host neighbourhood parties and sports competitions. The tram continues uphill and culminates at a multipurpose court, just before another UPP station that sits on the road to Laranjeiras at the top of the hill. Looking down from the top, the favela exudes progress: the tram chugs up and down the hill, as children on roofs fly kites and dream of the future.
The outlook for Santa Marta
Investments in urban infrastructure have integrated the favela with the formal city below. Yet its character remains. Neighbours take immense pride in their tightly knit community and residents have found ways to capitalise on Santa Marta’s ideal location in Rio’s exclusive South Zone. After the process for securing tenure started in 2003, many homeowners have opened small businesses that cater to locals and to an increasing number of tourists. The FIFA World Cup of 2014 and the Summer Olympics of 2016 have seen the emergence of a wider interest in the favela, and local tour operators guide people up and down the labyrinth of Santa Marta’s pathways.
Many things have changed for Gilson Fumaça. From the small favela tour company that he worked with in 2011, he now runs an independent agency and speaks three languages. His makeshift home has grown into a hostel that caters to tourists from around the world, and Gilson could not be happier. As Gilson says, “We used to live in fear. Now things are different. We are no longer marginalised. People say that things have become more expensive. That’s true. Now we have to pay for water and electricity, which were pirated earlier. But now we have opportunity. We have samba schools and sports facilities and we can stay up all night dancing. I can run my own business and I love what I do.”
Laura Amaya is an architect and urban researcher. Her main interest revolves around the role of design as a catalyst for development. Originally from Bogotá, Colombia, she is currently based in Mumbai, India.
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