favelas
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The scene at the World Cup final today could serve as a slightly absurd metaphor for the tournament as a whole. The crowd at Maracanã stadium, the site of Brazil’s infamous 1950 defeat to Uruguay, shouted crude insults at the Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff. Dilma, grimacing, handed the trophy to the victorious German team “like a hot potato.” The song
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Yesterday, the 2014 World Cup began at São Paulo Arena. At a total cost of roughly $11 billion — and at least eight workers’ lives — Brazil will host the most expensive World Cup in history. (Though the scandalous unfolding atrocity in Qatar may prove even worse.) Brazilians overwhelmingly supported bringing the event to their country when FIFA awarded them the honor in 2007 (no other nation in the Americas volunteered),
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In Brazil, illegal settlements, known as “favelas,” exist in most major cities. Migrants from rural Brazil flooded into rapidly-industrializing cities during the early 20th century and created a housing crisis. The explosion in demand drove up the price of real estate and with their meager wages, most laborers were forced to live in “vilas-cidadelas” (“company neighborhoods”
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I wrote this for a class on Brazil’s ongoing transition from “developing” to “developed” country. Some snippets: Residents of Brazil’s favelas (and other slum-like urban settlements, which will be distinguished below) exist in a strange limbo of legality. They often have no title to the lands they occupy, their living is often made in informal
Mike LaSusa 