The Poor, the Periphery, and the State in Metropolitan Rio de Janeiro

Abstract

This paper analyzes the socio-economic and political factors accounting for the spatial structure of Metropolitan Rio de Janeiro. Urban services and facilities, as well as upper- and middle-class housing are concentrated in the core. The most poor are segregated to poorly equipped peripheral areas. To the extent that access to urban services is considered a component of real income, spatial segregation reinforces income concentration, a feature of the region's process of economic development. The paper analyzes how state intervention has contributed to this pattern by concentrating investments in the core and immediate periphery, and relocating squatter settlers to suburbs. The state has adopted a laissez-faire attitude towards the periphery, where speculative land subdivision had provided a viable, yet inequitable, housing alternative for the poor. Low-income groups have fought to improve their lot, pressuring against favela removal and for urban improvements in their neighborhoods. They have also used the system to their advantage by becoming petty landlords or land speculators. Although these may be viewed merely as “coping strategies,” their conservative or revolutionary potential is a matter to be assessed empirically. Likewise, whether state policies will be repressive, distributive, or even redistributive cannot be stated beforehand. These policies are shaped not only by structural forces, but also by the political context and the views of government employees.

Spatially and Socially Progressive State Policy and Programs: The Case of Brazil's National Housing Bank

“…First, we need more research on the state's contribution t o centripetal and centrifugal development patterns in Latin American cities (Portes and johns 1986;Gondim 1987) and how these follow or deviate from the North American model. First, we need more research on the state's contribution t o centripetal and centrifugal development patterns in Latin American cities (Portes and johns 1986;Gondim 1987) and how these follow or deviate from the North American model.…”

“…The argument is not that the locality has developed independently from larger-scale forces, so that the latter can be considered exogenous to the locality. Rather, a locality occupies a distinctive economic and political position within largerscale systems, and its experience with respect to a national policy will also be distinct (Massey 1983 Bolaffi 1977;Gondim 1987). Two problems result.…”