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Rio de Janeiro

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Rio de Janeiro levels in the outlying municipalities (see

Figure 1).
GABRIEL SILVESTRE An intraurban analysis of the city of Rio
University of Sheffield, UK de Janeiro demonstrates higher indicators in
the central, South Zone, and Barra da Tijuca
Rio 40 degrees, sung by Fernanda Abreu areas. Although there is a similar decreasing
in 1992, challenged traditional depictions pattern as one progress to the peripheral
of the city of Rio de Janeiro as a place areas in the north and the west, very low lev-
blessed by nature and with indefatigable els are observed throughout the city, denoting
joie de vivre: “Purgatory of beauty and the location of large favelas (see Figure 2).
chaos … capital … of the best and the worst The city is thus marked by social inequality
of Brazil.” It portrayed a multifaceted city of and spatial segregation. During the intense
hidden worlds, parallel “governments,” and urbanization process of the past century,
groups in society finding their own ways of most of the plans and projects elaborated to
getting things through: criminals, congress- orient the development of the city focused on
men, the middle class, the retired, and even the central and coastal areas.
children. It epitomized the daily hardship of
life in this bustling megalopolis at the turn of THE LONG TWENTIETH CENTURY
the century.
Rio de Janeiro has played a central role As the capital of Brazil for nearly 200 years
in the urban history of Brazil, not only due Rio de Janeiro benefited from successive
to the fact it was the capital of the country waves of intervention aiming at improv-
k between 1763 and 1960 and thus concentrated ing its infrastructure. Founded in 1565 as k
important political, economic, and cultural a settlement on a strategic location on the
institutions, but also for its experience of western shore of the Guanabara Bay and
urbanization, which has had important sandwiched between the Atlantic rainforest,
effects on the country’s development trajec- rocky mountains, and the sea, it evolved as
tories and modernization. This experience is an important center of the Portuguese colo-
also illustrative of the urbanization of Brazil nial empire. The accidental geography, vast
in general, marked by accelerated growth, areas of marshlands, and tropical diseases
intense inward migration, and uneven devel- were significant barriers to the expansion
opment. The census carried out in 2010 of the central core. Its structure was signif-
indicated a metropolitan population of about icantly altered when the Portuguese royal
12 million inhabitants living in the 21 cities family and court moved to Rio in 1808,
forming the Metropolitan Region of Rio de after fleeing Lisbon due to the invasion
Janeiro (MRRJ). On the Human Develop- of Napoleonic forces, and remaining until
ment Index (HDI) elaborated by the United 1821. In the following year, the indepen-
Nations Development Programme, which dence of Brazil from Portugal was declared.
combines education, health, and income Over the next decades, the construction of
indicators, the MRRJ is characterized by factories, railways, and a booming coffee
elevated HDI in the municipalities of Rio economy marked the steady development of
de Janeiro and Niterói with decreasing the city.

Wiley Blackwell Encyclopedia of Urban and Regional Studies. Edited by Anthony Orum.
© 2019 John Wiley & Sons Ltd. Published 2019 by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

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2 R IO DE JA N E I RO

RM - Rio de IDHM
Janeiro

Camada: UDH

Legenda
0,9 - 1
0,8 - 0,899
0,7 - 0,799
0,6 - 0,699
0 - 0,599

+
−

0%

Figure 1 HDI of the districts of the Rio de Janeiro Metropolitan Area, 2010 (source: Atlas of Human
Development in Brazil, accessed January 17, 2018 at http://www.atlasbrasil.org.br/2013/pt/mapa)

k k

Figure 2 Panoramic view from Rocinha, the largest favela of Rio de Janeiro (source: chensiyuan, accessed
January 17, 2018 at https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Rocinha_rio_de_janeiro_panorama_2010.
jpg#mw-jump-to-license)

The first large-scale development project and the world’s largest coffee producer – with
took place at the beginning of the twentieth the material and cultural traits of a modern
century with the renewal of the historic city and cosmopolitan city (Abreu 2008). Mayor
center and the port area, a feat likened to Pereira Passos’s bulldozing efforts saw the
that of Baron Haussmann’s great works of demolition of hundreds of tenement houses,
Paris, which served as a reference (Needell home to many urban poor composed by
1987). The city experienced a frenetic and freed slaves and migrants, attracted by the
profound program of works with the goal of proximity to labor opportunities. A conse-
“civilizing” and “embellishing” the capital of quence of this action was the displacement of
the “new Brazil” – by then a young republic thousands of poor residents to more distant

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R IO DE JA N E I RO 3

neighborhoods served by the railway or to was commissioned with the preparation of a

precarious self-built homes on the hills near new master plan for the city. Developed over
the city center. The increasing formation of the course of three years in the late 1920s it
so-called favelas by 1916 was such that a local applied the concepts of French urbanisme,
magazine called for a “rigorous censorship” which considered urban planning as a science
of the “parasitic neighborhoods of the hills” and art to systematically study the physical
that were “wrecking with their sordid exis- and social organization of cities. It aimed
tence the efforts made to dot the capital of to order the urban space with monumen-
Brazil with the magnificent aspects of a great tal and beautifying projects, including the
metropolis” (Abreu 2008, 89). construction of garden cities and extensive
In the first quarter of the twentieth century infrastructural programs. Rather than a plan
two vectors of urban development followed for immediate application, it established
the transport networks that socially and development policies to be followed in the
spatially stratified the city. One followed long term. The thorough propositions of the
the coastline south of the center led by the plan were officially discarded in the following
opening of tramways to the wealthy neigh- administration. Nevertheless, it influenced
borhoods of Glória and Botafogo – where the the development of local planning expertise,
elites built their mansions – and well across with some of its technical proposals related
the hills into the coastal areas of Copacabana, to the circulation and sanitary systems being
Ipanema, and Leblon – where a beach iden- carried out over the years. The hiring of
tity would later be formed. The other vector another foreign planner took place in the
followed north from Centro, along the rail 1960s with the Greek Constantinos Doxiadis.
k lines departing from Central do Brasil station The plan exemplified modernist planning k
toward industrial and rural districts such adapted to the developmental ideals of Third
as Engenho de Dentro and Campo Grande, World countries. As Resende (1982) recog-
and into the Baixada Fluminense region. nized, gone were the aesthetic concerns that
Rio quickly evolved into a large metropolis characterized both the Passos and Agache
reaching a population of more than 1 million proposals; the current planning paradigm
in 1920 and more than doubling that figure emphasized the search for efficiency in the
after World War II. ordering of the built environment, particu-
The master plans developed for Rio de larly ready-made ideas for the optimization of
Janeiro over the past century exemplify the road system. As with Agache, the plan was
what urban scholar Ermínia Maricato (2000) not implemented but some of the proposals
reckoned as the pervasive feature of urban for new express roads were carried out in a
planning practice in Brazil: recurring cases piecemeal manner in the following decades.
of “ideas out of place” – the practice of From the 1930s a prolific group of
mobilizing references from abroad, from architects active in the city flourished and
Haussmannization to CIAM (Congrès inter- developed a distinct line of modernism that
nationaux d’architecture moderne) and came to symbolize the modernization of the
the global city discourse – and conversely, country. Architects, planners, and landscape
the fate of places, if not most of the urban professionals such as Oscar Niemeyer, Lúcio
space – being disregarded in the application Costa, Affonso Eduardo Reidy, Roberto Burle
of such ideas. Marx, and Lota de Macedo Soares produced
After Passos, French architect Alfred an important legacy of works not only in Rio
Agache, affiliated to the Musée Social of Paris, but throughout the country and abroad. Their

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4 R IO DE JA N E I RO

remarkable contribution includes buildings due the wave of kidnappings while companies
such as the Gustavo Capanema Palace, the transferred their activities to other places.
Pedregulho housing complex, Flamengo The urban space became increasingly fortified
Park, and the Museum of Modern Art in Rio, with fences, walls, and surveillance cameras.
and the Museum of Contemporary Art in The booming area of Barra da Tijuca, the new
Niterói. urban frontier for Rio’s upper and middle
The fast-paced growth of metropolitan Rio classes, symbolized the new round of spatial
during the dictatorship period (1964–1985) segregation in the city with the construction
was addressed by a “highway fever” that led of exclusive enclaves of gated communities,
to the construction of new roads, tunnels, shopping malls, and expressways. Despite
and flyovers such as the Perimetral elevated the adverse scenario, a new administration
expressway over the port area; the Aterro do at the city hall decided to prepare a bid to
Flamengo coastal expressway facilitating traf- host the Olympic Games as a strategy to turn
fic flow between Centro and the South Zone; around the fortunes of the city.
and the eight-mile cross-bay Rio–Niterói
bridge. However, these works were testimony
to the beginning of a slow political and eco- OLYMPIC RIO
nomic decline, since the federal government
In 1993 a conservative government took
relocated to the newly built capital of Brasília
office in city hall and its key figures concen-
in 1960, which meant not only a loss of status
trated political power over the next 23 years.
but also the departure of important elements
of the local economy. The dimensions of this Despite personal clashes between the political
decline became clearly recognizable in the actors a relatively stable ideational context
k was established that allowed the design, k
recession of the 1980s when the state of Rio
de Janeiro was surpassed by other states in formulation, and implementation of policies
economic indicators, including a contraction commonly supported. This represented a
by a third of its share of contribution to the break from the popular left-wing politics
national GDP between 1970 and 2010. of the previous governments elected since
Amid the global economic crisis, Brazil redemocratization and a shift in the planning
reached the 1980s with an unsustainable paradigm and policies of urban development.
level of external debt and contracted growth. The new agenda localized the discourse of
Structural adjustment programs conditioned globalization and the need to compete for
by the loans from multilateral institutions resources by introducing strategic spatial
further increased levels of poverty and unem- planning, waterfront regeneration, and the
ployment. Crime levels soared in Rio while hosting of mega-events as policy priorities
organized armed groups started to take con- aiming to project a new image of the city and
trol of the favelas as a base for their illicit stimulate economic development.
activities. The Rio de Janeiro of the “lost The idea of a candidature of Rio de Janeiro
decades” of 1980s and 1990s still attracted for the Olympic Games emerged in the
worldwide attention. This time, rather than mid-1990s in the context of policy networks
being the background for the Hollywood established between policy-makers of the city
films of the 1950s, it was productions focus- and from Barcelona (Silvestre 2017). Few
ing on urban violence, such as City of God and months after the hosting of the 1992 Olympic
Elite Squad, that gained international acco- Games, consultants and experts from the
lades. Part of the business elite left the city Catalan city assisted in the elaboration of

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R IO DE JA N E I RO 5

the first strategic spatial plan of Rio de Having the full support of the federal, state,
Janeiro. The organization of the mega-event and local governments – that represented an
was promoted as an opportunity to set a unprecedented political alliance – the bid was
clear deadline in order to achieve the objec- successfully elected in 2009. Underpinned by
tives and targets established in the plan. the strong economic growth of the Brazilian
It was expected that it could also trigger economy and a thriving oil and gas industry
large-scale infrastructural projects, leverage in Rio, it argued that the projects proposed
public investment from the three levels of would enable Rio to “become a greater global
government, and present a “new Rio.” city and an even better place to live, do
A bid for the 2004 Olympic Games was business and visit” (Rio de Janeiro 2016 Bid
hastily prepared incorporating general pre- Committee 2009, 23). All infrastructural
cepts of the 1992 Barcelona Olympic Games. works were underwritten by the federal gov-
It earmarked declining urban areas in the ernment in the US$240 billion budget of the
North Zone for regeneration and a mul- growth acceleration program.
ticluster organization. The bid generated The program of works included the
great support from the public while new development of an Olympic Park with
promises were announced, including a bold the construction or refurbishment of nine
social development agenda aimed to improve sport arenas, hotels, and media centers (see
living conditions by eradicating poverty and Figure 3); a secondary Olympic cluster in the
upgrading slums. However, the proposal military area of Deodoro with the creation
failed to impress the International Olympic of a new public park; the redevelopment
Committee (IOC) inspection and was not of 5 million square meters in the port area
k shortlisted. into a mixed-use area for business, leisure, k
Promoters of the bid who were critical of and commerce; 150 kilometers of lanes for a
the selection of locations in the North Zone new system of bus rapid transit (BRT); the
proposed to rearrange the Olympic project expansion of the subway system; and the
and focus attention on other events. It was cleaning of the polluted waters of Guanabara
argued that Rio had to first prove its cre- Bay (see Figure 4).
dentials by hosting the 2007 Pan American After being awarded the hosting rights, Rio
Games, the Olympic-style competition for de Janeiro entered a seven-year preparation
the Americas. Giving an otherwise modest phase to implement and deliver the urban
competition an “Olympic makeover” the intervention program outlined in the bid.
event had original estimates multiplied by During this time the confidence and opti-
four as a set of venues were specially built mism in the Brazilian and Rio de Janeiro’s
for the event including an Olympic sta- economy expressed by the official discourse of
dium, a velodrome, an indoor arena, and the candidature and reproduced in the close
an aquatics center. This time, spatial plan- relationship among government officials all
ning privileged the expanding and wealthy but reversed. In the year of the staging of the
district of Barra da Tijuca with the athlete’s 2016 Olympics severe political, economic,
village adding to the local gated-community and health crises affected the country, the
stock. Criticism, particularly in relation state, and the city.
to the inflated costs, was somehow held Since 2015, an economic recession has
off, as the experience was justified as an led to austerity measures accompanied by a
Olympic rehearsal with a new bid quickly deterioration of social conditions for many
announced. of Brazil’s poorest residents. This has been

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6 R IO DE JA N E I RO

Figure 3 Aerial view of the Olympic Park as of May 2015 (source: Renato Sette Camara/Rio de Janeiro
City Council)

k accentuated by a political crisis with the a state of financial emergency in order to k

dissolution of the coalition between the request federal funds to deliver, among other
Workers’ Party (PT) and the Brazilian Demo- commitments, the programs associated with
cratic Movement Party (PMDB) after 13 the mega-event. Since then severe austerity
years in power in federal government that measures have been announced that have
triggered a process of presidential impeach- affected the running of public services and
ment. Parallel to this, an investigation carried the payment of the salaries of civil servants.
out by the federal police exposed a wide-scale Although not as dramatic, locally it was
corruption scheme involving the state oil the end of the political cycle started in 1993.
company Petrobrás. High ranking politicians The local elections held in October 2016
and construction companies involved in most saw the government’s candidate running on
of Rio de Janeiro’s development programs the prestige of the Olympic Games finishing
have been accused and imprisoned for divert- in third place while the incoming mayor
ing money from inflated tendered contracts declared that the cycle of large-scale works
to pay bribes and finance political campaigns. had come to an end. The consolidation of
At the regional level, the financial position Olympic-related works is thus unclear. The
of the state government of Rio de Janeiro public tendering for the management of the
was seriously undermined by the sharp fall Olympic Park did not attract the expected
in oil prices, tax exemptions that compro- interest from private companies and was
mised state revenues, and by the national assumed by the federal government. Several
economic downturn with an estimated deficit real estate developments in the redeveloped
of US$5.1 billion in 2016. Two months prior port area have been put on hold or discarded.
to the hosting of the Olympics it declared The completion of other related works, such

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20 k

10
Deodoro 9 8
7
m
15 k 6

11

m
10 k 14
Maracanã 12 13 15
RIO DE JANEIRO 16

Parque Estadual da Pedra Branca5 km Parque Nacional da Tijuca Copacabana

2 17
3
1 19
4
Barra
18

k
k

Transport Barra Deodoro Maracanã Copacabana

Existing Under Construction Port Existing installations 1 Olympic and Paralympic Village 6 National Equestrian Center 11 João Havelange Stadium 15 Marina da Glória
Orum

Principal Roads BRT Transolimpica Ferry terminal Installations under 2 Riocentro 7 Deodoro Modern Pentathlon 12 Maracanã Stadium 16 Flamingo Park
construction
Railways BRT Transoeste Coach station
3 IBC – International Broadcast 13 Maracanãzinho Arena 17 Copacabana Stadium
Temporary installations 8 Deodoro Arena
Metro BRT Transcarioca International airport – Center
MPC – Main Press Centre 14 Sambódromo 18 Fort Copacabana
Integrated BRT Transbrasil António Carlos Jobim 9 National Shooting Center
Metro 19
eurs0272.tex

Domestic airport – 10
Rodrigo de Freitas Lagoon
4 Olympic Park Radical Park
Interchange Santos Dumont
5 Marapendi Golf Course

Figure 4 Spatial planning of the Rio 2016 Olympic Games (source: Rio de Janeiro City Council)
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8 R IO DE JA N E I RO

as the full operation of subway line 4 and [Urban Planning and Ideology: Four Plans for the
the Transbrasil BRT corridor, are awaiting City of Rio de Janeiro]. Rio de Janeiro: Civilização
definition. What will become of the city in Brasileira.
Rio de Janeiro 2016 Bid Committee. 2009. Candi-
its post-Olympic cycle and the continuity or
dature File for Rio de Janeiro to Host the 2016
change of its development trajectory remains Olympic and Paralympic Games, 3 vols. Rio de
to be seen. Janeiro: Rio de Janeiro 2016 Bid Committee.
Silvestre, Gabriel. 2017. “Rio de Janeiro 2016.” In
eurs0017 SEE ALSO: Barcelona; Brasília; Cities in
eurs0029 Olympic Cities: City Agendas, Planning, and the
eurs0043 Developing Countries; Costa, Lúcio; Favelas;
World’s Games, 1896–2020, 3rd ed., edited by
eurs0065
Global City; Latin American Cities; John R. Gold and Margaret M. Gold, 400–423.
eurs0094
eurs0514 Megalopolis; Niemeyer, Oscar; Spectacle London: Routledge.
eurs0179
eurs0521
eurs0224 REFERENCES
eurs0316 FURTHER READING
Abreu, Maurício de Almeida. 2008. Evolução
McCann, Bryan. 2014. Hard Times in the Mar-
urbana do Rio de Janeiro [Urban Evolution of Rio
velous City: From Dictatorship to Democracy in
de Janeiro], 4th ed. Rio de Janeiro: IPP.
the Favelas of Rio de Janeiro. Durham, NC: Duke
Maricato, Ermínia. 2000. “As ideias fora do lugar
University Press.
e o lugar fora das ideias: planejamento urbano
Meade, Teresa A. 1997. “Civilizing” Rio: Reform
no Brasil” [“Ideas Out of Place and the Place
and Resistance in a Brazilian City 1889–1930.
Outside the Ideas: Urban Planning in Brazil”].
University Park, PA: Penn State University Press.
In A cidade do pensamento único: desmanchando
Perlman, Janice. 2010. Favela: Four Decades of
consensos [The City of Single Thought: Disman-
Living on the Edge in Rio de Janeiro. Oxford:
tling Consensus], edited by Otília Arantes, Car-
Oxford University Press.
los Vainer, and Ermínia Maricato, 121–192.
Valladares, Lícia do Prado. 2005. A invenção da
k Petrópolis: Vozes.
favela: do mito de origem a favela.com [The k
Needell, Jeffrey D. 1987. A Tropical Belle Époque:
Invention of the Slums: From the Myth of Origin
Elite Culture and Society in Turn-of-the-Century
to Slum.com]. Rio de Janeiro: FGV.
Rio de Janeiro. Cambridge: Cambridge Univer-
Ventura, Zuenir. 1994. Cidade partida [The
sity Press.
Divided City]. São Paulo: Companhia das
Resende, Vera. 1982. Planejamento urbano e ideolo-
Letras.
gia: quatro planos para a cidade do Rio de Janeiro

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ABSTRACT
Brazil’s second largest metropolitan area and one of the world’s largest megalopolises, Rio de Janeiro
is known for the beauty of its natural settings, its cultural heritage, and as a center of the oil and gas
industry. It was an important colonial city of the Portuguese empire and capital of Brazil for almost
200 years until the construction of Brasília. Its development trajectory is illustrative of the urban-
ization process of Brazil, marked by phases of accelerated growth, intense inward migration, and
uneven development. Around 22 percent of the population live in favelas, making Rio a city marked
by social inequality and spatial segregation. The hosting of the 2016 Olympic Games was envisioned
as a watershed moment in urban development but the delivery of a global city agenda was plagued by
difficulties. Political and economic instability have affected the country, region, and city since 2015
and the post-Olympic development trajectory of Rio is unclear.

k KEYWORDS k

globalization; inequality; urban geography; urbanization

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