Ronaldo Ramírez

Favela Bairro and a new generation of housing programmes for the urban poor

Abstract To date Favela Bairro is the largest-scale squatter settlement upgrading programme implemented in Latin America. It aims to comprehensively upgrade all the medium-sized squatter settlements in the municipality of Rio de Janeiro by 2004, and the programme is currently being promoted by the citys municipal government as an example of a new approach to tackling poverty and social exclusion in the city. Based on research carried out by the authors, the article examines the central characteristics of Favela Bairro. (During the field research, undertaken in 2000, a total of 39 people were interviewed in Rio, including staff of a range of municipal departments and agencies, community groups and residents, architects, academics, construction company workers, and NGO workers). The examination is conducted in the light of seven policy characteristics which the authors have identified, using policy/project documents and agency agendas, as typifying an emerging new generation of housing policies whose objective is to reduce urban poverty. Through this examination the article aims to add to the growing literature on Favela Bairro, which to date, has been largely descriptive. It also aims to test the proposed framework of analysis, using it as a means to reflect upon the latest generation of housing-poverty policies. The article concludes by arguing that processes of participation and democratisation are central if the latest generation of poverty reduction initiatives is to have an impact which is both substantive in scale and lasting in impact. Yet, as demonstrated in the case of Favela Bairro, it remains extremely problematic for governments to implement projects which devolve significant decision-making powers to poor urban communities, and even more difficult still for governments to institutionalise mechanisms for civil society participation, thereby embracing processes of state reform and democratisation.

State and civil society in the barrios of Havana, Cuba: the case of Pogolotti

This paper discusses the factors that influenced the success or failure of community projects in one low-income neighbourhood in Havana, Cuba. The scope for community initiatives increased in the late 1980s, in part because of citizens’ desire to take initiatives and collective action to improve their living conditions, in response to the crisis Cuba faced with the disintegration of the communist bloc. The government also allowed civil society more scope, and offered official support to participation and civil society initiatives through Talleres, groups of professionals in the urban and social fields based in each neighbourhood. This paper examines how the people in Pogolotti used available institutions to originate and channel a range of civil society initiatives, including self-help housing construction, a dance group for teenagers, a food conservation project, a children’s musical group, street lighting, forest restoration, recycling and a senior citizens’ house project. It finds that both the state and civil society were positive influences in the origination of successful community projects, which contradicts the assumption that civil-society-initiated projects are more likely to succeed. The state-created Talleres seem to be creating new relationships between civil society and the state; these may be a very small part of Cuban society but they may contain the seeds of new forms of socialist organizations.

Physical Upgrading and Social Integration in of Rio de Janeiro: the Case of Favela Bairro

Favela Bairro is the largest-scale squatter settlement upgrading programme implemented in Latin America. It has gained international recognition as an example of a new generation of housing and environmental upgrading programmes aiming at the reduction of urban poverty and social exclusion. Based on research carried out by the authors, the article examines the central concepts which have informed Favela Bairro and the ways in which they were operationalised [1]. The examination is conducted in the light of seven policy characteristics which the authors have identified as typifying an emerging new generation of housing and upgrading policies. The article argues that processes of participation and democratisation are central if the latest generation of poverty reduction initiatives are to have an impact which is both substantive in scale and lasting in time. Yet, as demonstrated in the case of Favela Bairro, it remains extremely problematic for governments to implement projects which devolve significant decisionmaking powers to poor urban communities and, even more difficult, to institutionalise mechanisms for civil society participation as a central part of state reform and democratisation. This is an extended and modified version of the paper “Favela Bairro and a New Generation of Housing Programmes for the Urban Poor” by the same authors, published in GEOFORUM, Vol. 3 2, No. 4, pp. 5 21–5 31, 2001. Adapted with permission from Elsevier Science.