Inside Rio’s favelas, the city's neglected neighborhoods

00:09:00
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c3BRTlHFpBU

Summary

TLDRThe video delves into the stark contrasts between the 'people of the asphalt' and the 'people of the hill' in Rio de Janeiro, particularly focusing on the favelas. It explains the historical context of favelas, which emerged from the informal settlements of freed slaves and rural migrants. The narrative highlights the self-sufficient economies of favelas like Rocinha, showcasing the creativity and resourcefulness of their residents. However, it also addresses the challenges posed by drug gangs and police violence, particularly the controversial 'pacification' efforts. The video emphasizes that while gang violence is a significant issue, the true essence of favelas lies in the thriving culture and community spirit of their inhabitants, who continue to create beauty and resilience in the face of adversity.

Takeaways

  • 🏙️ Rio de Janeiro has distinct areas: 'people of the asphalt' vs 'people of the hill'.
  • 🏘️ Favelas are informal communities built without government oversight.
  • 📜 Favelas originated from freed slaves and rural migrants seeking housing.
  • 🌱 Rocinha is the largest favela, known for its self-sufficient economy.
  • 🎨 Residents create art and gardens, transforming neglected spaces.
  • 💔 Drug gangs like the Red Command influence many favelas.
  • 🚔 Pacification efforts by police have had mixed results.
  • 📸 Photography is a tool for transparency and resistance in favelas.
  • 🌍 International focus often highlights gang violence over community resilience.
  • 💪 Favelas showcase the creativity and resourcefulness of their inhabitants.

Timeline

  • 00:00:00 - 00:09:00

    The video explores the stark contrast between the urban planning of Rio de Janeiro and the informal communities known as favelas. It introduces the terms 'people of the asphalt' and 'people of the hill' to describe the residents of these areas, highlighting their vastly different lifestyles despite their close proximity. Favelas, characterized by houses stacked on hills, emerged due to historical factors like slavery and recent migrations, with 25% of Rio's population living in these communities. The video emphasizes the self-sufficiency and creativity of favelas, showcasing examples like Rocinha, where residents have developed their own systems for basic needs without government oversight. It also features individuals like Paulo, who transformed a garbage-filled hill into a garden, and Mauricio, a photographer documenting life in the favela. While the video acknowledges the challenges posed by drug gangs, it ultimately focuses on the resilience and creativity of favela residents, who thrive despite neglect from public investment.

Mind Map

Video Q&A

  • What are favelas?

    Favelas are informal communities in Rio de Janeiro built without government oversight, often characterized by houses stacked on top of each other.

  • What is the difference between 'people of the asphalt' and 'people of the hill'?

    'People of the asphalt' live in well-planned urban areas, while 'people of the hill' reside in favelas, facing different socio-economic conditions.

  • How did favelas originate?

    Favelas originated from the informal settlements built by freed slaves and rural migrants seeking affordable housing in the city.

  • What is Rocinha?

    Rocinha is Brazil's largest favela, known for its self-sufficient economy and community-driven projects.

  • What challenges do favelas face?

    Favelas face challenges such as drug gang influence, lack of public services, and police violence.

  • What is 'pacification' in the context of favelas?

    Pacification refers to the process where police forces are deployed to regain control over favelas from gang influence.

  • How do residents of favelas create beauty despite poverty?

    Residents engage in creative survival, transforming neglected spaces into gardens, art centers, and community projects.

  • What role do drug gangs play in favelas?

    Drug gangs, like the Red Command, exert significant influence in many favelas, complicating the socio-political landscape.

  • What is the significance of photography in favelas?

    Photography is used by residents to document life in favelas, providing transparency and fighting against corruption.

  • What is the perception of favelas internationally?

    International attention often focuses on gang violence, overshadowing the vibrant culture and resilience of favela communities.

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  • 00:00:02
    If you go to a Google map of Rio de Janeiro and put it into 3D mode,
  • 00:00:06
    you can see what the city looks like as it
  • 00:00:08
    was designed by urban planners.
  • 00:00:11
    But you will also notice parts of the city that don’t look like the rest.
  • 00:00:15
    See the difference?
  • 00:00:17
    The people who live in these parts of the city,
  • 00:00:18
    with the clean lines and the well thought-out design,
  • 00:00:21
    are called “people of the asphalt.”
  • 00:00:24
    The people who live in these parts of the city are called “people of the hill.”
  • 00:00:27
    Even though the people of the asphalt and the people of the hill live closely intertwined
  • 00:00:31
    throughout the city, they live vastly different lives.
  • 00:00:35
    These informal communities that look like houses stacked on top of each other,
  • 00:00:39
    sprouting out of the jungle,
  • 00:00:41
    are called Favelas, home to both vicious drug gangs as well as some
  • 00:00:45
    of the most peaceful, creative, and resourceful people in Rio.
  • 00:00:49
    I want to show you want they looks like on the inside.
  • 00:01:02
    A favela is a community that was built without any oversight from a public authority--no
  • 00:01:06
    zoning, no building codes, no public services.
  • 00:01:10
    These places just grew out of the hills over time thanks to two main factors:
  • 00:01:14
    First was slavery.
  • 00:01:16
    Brazil imported 11 times more slaves than the United States and Rio alone was home to
  • 00:01:22
    more slaves than the entire American south.
  • 00:01:25
    Slavery ended in 1888, and free slaves, still denied many rights in society, built informal communities
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    on their own.
  • 00:01:33
    In more recent times, favelas have been fueled by massive migrations,
  • 00:01:37
    from rural Brazilians coming into the city looking for work.
  • 00:01:41
    Not able to find affordable housing, these workers built their own communities.
  • 00:01:45
    Today, 25% of Rio’s residents live in these favelas.
  • 00:01:50
    I spent time in 6 of Rio’s favelas to figure out what happens when parts of a city develop
  • 00:01:56
    without the presence of a government.
  • 00:02:02
    This is Rocinha.
  • 00:02:03
    It’s Brazil's largest favela and has been dubbed a city within a city.
  • 00:02:07
    It’s a completely self sufficient economy, the result of decades of makeshift solutions
  • 00:02:12
    to basic needs like electricity and running water.
  • 00:02:14
    Without a formal government presence, the residents of Rocinha created their own association
  • 00:02:20
    which helps coordinate public projects and resources.
  • 00:02:23
    Since these associations grew up totally informally by people who had no training in public administration,
  • 00:02:29
    the resulting community design brings with it a little more zest and creativity than your traditional city.
  • 00:02:40
    But make no mistake, Rocinha is a full-on functioning mini city with the city of Rio de Janeiro.
  • 00:02:48
    This impromptu resourcefulness is common within favelas.
  • 00:02:53
    Here I am in Vidigal, a favela not far from Rocinha.
  • 00:02:59
    This man Paulo is showing me his garden.
  • 00:03:01
    But it wasn’t always a garden.
  • 00:03:03
    15 years ago, this hill that we stand on,
  • 00:03:05
    was teeming with garbage.
  • 00:03:07
    Paulo decided to cleaned it up, planted trees and cultivated a garden space that now produces fruit.
  • 00:03:13
    He did this without asking permission,
  • 00:03:14
    because, after all, there was no one to ask permission from.
  • 00:03:18
    If you look around the graden, you'll realize that everything is made from trash.
  • 00:03:32
    On the other side of the city is a Favela called Maré.
  • 00:03:34
    The people of this community have created art centers for young people to come learn
  • 00:03:38
    new skills.
  • 00:03:39
    They also support established artists to create projects around the city that explore
  • 00:03:44
    and communicate life in the favela.
  • 00:03:46
    Here they are building a model of their favela out of recycled wood.
  • 00:03:52
    In Providencia, a favela near the port zone, I met up with this guy.
  • 00:03:56
    Mauricio, a photographer who lives in this amazing house.
  • 00:04:01
    Mauricio photographs life in the favela, providing transparency to the good and the bad of these places
  • 00:04:08
    He thinks of photography as a weapon to fight against everything from drug cartels to the
  • 00:04:13
    government when they show up trying to remove parts of his community
  • 00:04:17
    Whenever he sees corruption or foul play in his community,
  • 00:04:20
    he photographs it and distributes it to a network of local
  • 00:04:23
    and international media contacts.
  • 00:04:25
    Over the years, people have learned not to mess with him.
  • 00:04:38
    Why are these people who live in poverty and neglect,
  • 00:04:41
    so driven to create beauty in order to survive?
  • 00:05:00
    This reality of neglect from public investment,
  • 00:05:03
    has created a culture of creative survival.
  • 00:05:07
    But there’s a dark to this too.
  • 00:05:11
    Right now we are traveling over Complexo Do Alemão,
  • 00:05:14
    which is a huge complex or block of favelas
  • 00:05:17
    We're not going into the streets today, because this place is still very much run by
  • 00:05:23
    drug trafficking gangs
  • 00:05:26
    I would be sugar coating the situation if I didn't talk about the fact that drug gangs
  • 00:05:30
    stil have major influence in a lot of the favelas and Alemão is one of those places.
  • 00:05:35
    Perhaps the most powerful gang in Rio is called the Red Command, a group that began as a left-wing political
  • 00:05:41
    rebellion and whose headquarters are in Alemão.
  • 00:05:44
    Cocaine arrived in Rio in the 1980s, enriching the gangs and allowing them to grow in power and territory.
  • 00:05:51
    The Red Command became more violent and lost its political ideology, focusing entirely
  • 00:05:55
    on drug and arms trafficking.
  • 00:05:57
    The fact that favelas aren't formal and aren't regulated, means that
  • 00:06:03
    both that they can become incredibly vibrant
  • 00:06:05
    because people can take this attitude and build on qualities and be creative and change your environment,
  • 00:06:11
    but it also means that you can get incredibly dysfunctional places
  • 00:06:14
    when the energy and the approach is the opposite.
  • 00:06:17
    So you have these two extremes and they come out of the same force:
  • 00:06:21
    informality, lack of regulation, and flexibility.
  • 00:06:25
    In 2008, the city of Rio was ready to take over this lawless territories of Rio.
  • 00:06:31
    They assembled a special force of police officers to enter the favelas and drive out the gang influence.
  • 00:06:36
    They call this process “pacification of the favelas”
  • 00:06:40
    But this gets tricky really fast.
  • 00:06:42
    There’s been a big discussion in the United States about police brutality.
  • 00:06:46
    But Brazil is on a whole different level when it comes to police violence and corruption.
  • 00:06:50
    Human right watch estimates US police officers kill one person in every 37,000 arrests.
  • 00:06:57
    In Rio that number is 1 in every 23 arrests.
  • 00:07:01
    So you can see why some felt skeptical of letting the police come into the favelas to try to restore order.
  • 00:07:09
    This is Santa Marta.
  • 00:07:11
    It’s the first favela that received pacification forces back in 2008.
  • 00:07:15
    It also happens to be the place where Michael Jackson decided to shoot a music video.
  • 00:07:44
    Pacification worked for Santa Marta and a few other favelas,
  • 00:07:47
    for the first few years after 2008,
  • 00:07:49
    but this favela is small, and the city dedicated its best police forces to the job.
  • 00:07:54
    It’s been a whole different experience in a place like Alemão and other bigger favelas.
  • 00:07:58
    Many of the favelas that I visited that had apparently been pacified,
  • 00:08:02
    were still very clearly under the influence of the Red Command.
  • 00:08:07
    So while there have been some successes in pacification,
  • 00:08:10
    the city still has a huge challenge ahead of it
  • 00:08:12
    in taking control of these places.
  • 00:08:16
    International attention paid to favelas is usually directed towards the conflict between
  • 00:08:20
    the gangs and police.
  • 00:08:22
    There’s movies and video games about this.
  • 00:08:26
    This problem has been perhaps disproportionately amplified across the world.
  • 00:08:29
    But while gang violence is certainly a problem, it represents one small slice of the favela experience.
  • 00:08:36
    What seems to me as the more striking and interesting aspect of favelas,
  • 00:08:40
    are the thousands of men and women who are thriving
  • 00:08:42
    in creative way in spite of being neglected by their government.
Tags
  • Rio de Janeiro
  • favelas
  • urban planning
  • people of the asphalt
  • people of the hill
  • Rocinha
  • drug gangs
  • pacification
  • community resilience
  • creative survival