Favelas    

You re welcomed to bring your camera or VCR. Dangerous? Of course not. Shantytowns have kept pace with the modernization of Rio de Janeiro. The belle époque of the 1890s, when the city sought to become the Paris of South America by opening new roads, demolishing old buildings, and eradicating life-threatening diseases, witnessed the birth of the first favela, located on Providência Hill overlooking downtown. It was founded in 1897 by Afro-Brazilian veterans of the military campaign against the messianic rebel Antônio Conselheiro. But not until the 1940s, following the mass exodus of rural laborers from the interior of Brazil to Rio de Janeiro in search of industrial jobs, did favelas overtake slums as the principal form of housing for the urban poor. Workers who had recently arrived in Rio could not afford to live in tenement slums. Cramped rooms made it impossible to raise a large family, and the municipal code gave the landlord extensive powers of eviction. The only alternative for many migrants was to erect their own houses in violation of the law. Lawmakers tacitly agreed to condone the shantytowns as a way of removing the poor from the inner city while still giving industry and the middle class access to cheap labor. The 1940s witnessed the construction of dozens of favelas on hills, beaches, swamps, abandoned construction projects, and garbage dumps all over the federal district. During the next 50 years their population doubled every decade and spilled over into the metropolitan suburbs; according to government estimates in 1990, Rio contained over two million squatters, making one out of every three cariocas (residents of Rio de Janeiro) a favela dweller. 

*Favela Tour, a visit to a shanty town - Daily - 2 hs - R$ 80,00 per person

More photos Favelas !