
18 minute read
B. Expert Interviews
PEDRO JACOBI
Pedro Jacobi gave an insightful lecture about the growth of São Paulo as a city, natural resources and infrastructure, as well as how informality fits into this broader picture. Jacobi is a scholar in sociology, urban planning, sociology, and environmental science.
Unlike many U.S. cities that have declined in population as a result of sprawl, São Paulo has experienced continued growth. The City’s population is about 11 million and 22 million if you include the metro area (IBGE 2010). Approximately 92% of the population has access to drinking water. The reason this high percentage of people have access to drinking water is because high infant mortality rates incentivized the government and landowners to address issues of access to water (IBGE 2010). The majority of drinking water is sourced from a different state, outside of the State of São Paulo. Rather than access to water, the greater challenge much of the population faces is the lack of sewage infrastructure. Although the lack of infrastructure may seem like a more prominent issue in informal areas, adequate maintenance of sewerage is a city-wide issue. Updated infrastructure in any part of São Paulo does not guarantee that sewage is properly treated. Topography, the political context, and lack of information are a few barriers to the City maintaining and upgrading infrastructure.
Despite the larger issue of infrastructure that needs to be addressed by the City, landowners are responsible for connecting to the sewage, water, and electricity infrastructure that currently exists, even in occupations. The housing and environmental conflict that presents itself, especially in an occupation like Ocupação Anchieta, is that environmentally protected areas require permits to build anything. The irony is that in order to improve the environmental quality of the immediate area, without evicting residents, infrastructure is necessary. One way to get infrastructure in informal areas is by formalizing them. However, this present social and environmental challenges regarding who will be able to afford formalization and who will be pushed out and forced to occupy (and pollute) a new area.
FERNANDO BOTTON
Fernando Botton is a founding member of the URBZ São Paulo Group, “an experimental action and research collective working with associations, municipalities, and private clients around the world.” URBZ takes an interdisciplinary approach, employing architects, activists, and economists, for example. However, URBZ believes that residents are experts of their neighborhoods. Residents’ expertise is crucial for architecture, planning, urban development and policy-making. Through planning and design workshops, URBZ “promotes individual expression, grassroots involvement and ground up development.” Their commitment to information sharing and public participation allows URBZ to utilize local and global knowledge to produce innovative models in architecture, planning, and policy
making. Botton strongly emphasized the importance of building relationships in any community-based project, even if it takes five months to engage with the community.
THIAGO VINICIUS
Thiago Vinicius, a native of Paraisopolis and recent graduate of FESP in social sciences, spoke with Taubman College on Friday, March 3, at URBz workspace in Paraisopolis. To begin, Thiago read a powerful poem about life and stigma in the favelas.
Thiago discussed the various social groups in Paraisopolis, many of which operate under the liberation theology. Among these groups are the Social Movements of Women (mothers). Thiago’s mother is deeply involved in these groups, particularly in educating children. These groups focus on advocacy, as well as provide historical insight into the neighborhoods. Many residents in Paraisopolis and other informal settlements in Sao Paulo are from the northeastern part of the country, and Thiago remarked that this history of migration is an important one to the residents.
Social movement groups in the favela offer support for the residents that is not guaranteed from the government. In addition to social support, the community also offers micro-lending schemes to help with financial situations. Thiago showed the group the different bills of the currency used in Paraisopolis. Each dollar is the equivalent to 1 Brazilian Real. Families can use this money for groceries and necessities when they are cashstrapped, and there is no interest on the loan. Small businesses can also borrow this money to pay for expenses, however, they will have to pay a certain amount of interest on their loan.
Thiago also talked about baile funk, a controversial dance and music scene that occurs in favelas across the country. On the main street in the favela, thousands of youth gather for weekend parties. The event is seen as an empowering demonstration to some, but in recent years has attracted destructive and illegal behavior in the neighborhoods. Politicians have since criminalized baile funk, which has done anything but silence it. The movement is seen as a contemporary protest against militant policing of black people. Thiago says that peaceful protests in the name of baile funk have occurred, including silent sit-ins at city malls.
CARLOS LEITE
Taubman College Team met at municipal government building on 2 March 2017 with Carlos Leite, I, PhD, who serves as Director of Urban Development for the Municipality of Sao Paulo. The meeting was shortened because Leite had an important meeting to attend following the talk with Taubman College.
Leite discussed briefly with the group the growth patterns of Sao Paulo and the city’s plans to occupy “urban voids” throughout the city as a way to mitigate population density problems. The presentation began with some statistics about the city of Sao Paulo, which were shown on slides with maps in a powerpoint. Leite informed us that the city experienced incredible growth in population recently: an increase of 27,000% in the past 100 years. This growth has recently tapered off, as indicated by birth rates, but the city is still dealing with the impacts of growth.
To mitigate the impacts of the growth, Leite discussed sprawl and urban voids, or centrally-located areas of vacancy. These urban voids are likely brownfields of historically industrial developments. Pushing for housing and commercial areas in these urban voids are one way to deal with growth, Leite argues, that would take advantage of space, reduce sprawl, and promote a stronger city.
Leite contrasts all this information with the reality of informality in Brazil. He informed Taubman College that 30% of the population live in favelas that constitute 9% of the land. Also, interestingly, Leite described the municipality as being partially hired by a company to create a more business-like efficiency and complete projects more quickly.
The municipality also offers a program to introduce children to urbanism, called Urban95. Urban95 asks urban professionals: if you could see the city from an elevation of 95 cm – the average height of a healthy 3 year old – what would you do differently? The goals of the program are the create a more livable city for everyone.
RAIANA RIBEIRO
Raiana Ribeiro discussed the work of the Learning School City Association which is based in São Paulo but also does some work in Rio. The discussion emphasized that Brazilian education needs to move beyond school being in isolation from the community, rather focus on the context of the education and reaching beyond the classroom. The association has done this through their replicable, UNICEF supported Network Model which is where learning is as discussed above, more than the classroom to incorporate the families and communities. She talked about four programs specifically related to this: Educate a Child, Educating Cities, Reference Center on Integral Education, and Communication for Development. Overall, the association has had a lot of success nationally and internationally – although she did note that the network model of learning was challenging to transfer to other communities. Moving forward, Ribeiro emphasized that street design acts as one of the biggest physical barriers for students getting to school – without safe inviting streets children will have no way to engage with learning in the holistic sense.
ELIZABETE FRANÇA
Elizabete França’s lecture, which took place on March 6, 2017, provided insight into efforts into upgrading infrastructure in informal areas. She said that, unlike many of the other informal areas in São Paulo, the attention that Paraisópolis has received in popular culture meant that it was able to leverage funds. Nevertheless, upgrading the favelas throughout São Paulo is an expensive task. The Municipality received US$300 million from the Inter-American Development Bank in order to spearhead upgrading efforts.
Moreover, França explained that many of the interventions that were proposed were first tried out in other Brazilian cities. The original intervention for infrastructure upgrades used in São Paulo were first implemented in the favelas of Rio de Janeiro. Moreover, 50,000 housing units were constructed for families in São Paulo under the federal program “My House, My Life” of the late 2000s and early
2010s. Despite these numbers, França cautioned that the official statistics do not always include informal areas, and urged skepticism when analyzing government figures.
MARIO REALI
Mario Reali, former Mayor of Diadema and secretary of housing for São Paulo under Mayor Fernando Haddad, delivered a lecture on 2 March 2017. He noted that São Paulo has grown in a way that has produced division and marginalization of many people since the 1960s. Since then, there has been calls for urban reform. Reformers scored a major victory in the 1988 federal constitution. The urban policy chapter in this document guarantees function of property, and provides rights for efficient land use. Consequently, said Reali, there are social movements are trying to pass legislation and change existing facts on the ground in order to make land reform more accessible.
In addition, notes Reali, federal programs have been implemented in order to make land reform as economically feasible as possible. The City Statute, a federal law passed in 2003, enables and implements the urban policy chapter of the constitution. Additionally, former President Luiz Ignacio Lula Ignacio da Silva created a Ministry of Cities at the federal level. This ministry administered all urban policies throughout the country, and created a council of cities. Another program, Programa de Aceleração do Crecimiento (PAC) seought to oversee infrastructure programs under the country. However, the 2008 financial crisis hit country hard. São Paulo responded with a new program, “My House, my Life” in order to create jobs and boost housing stock among the working classes. Paraisopolis received PAC money to upgrade redevelopment and urbanize streets, as well as My House My Life moneys to construct housing.
Finally, Reali argued that there should be a diversity of responses by the São Paulo government in order to address the varying diversity of housing needs. He noted that, currently, about 89,000 families need to be relocated away from informal housing. Moreover, the São Paulo housing plan is good for 16 year plans, with updates every 4 years, according to the budget. Within these budgets, there are interventions that are specific to the city. Currently, the municipality pays out money for people to find their own housing. However, Reali noted that a new municipal program seeks to curb inflation in rent prices in informal areas. This plan seeks to replace rental assistance by building temporary housing units for people that need temporary help while they wait for permanent housing.
RUBEN OTERO
Ruben Otero is a professor at Escola da Cidade in São Paulo and one of the coordinators of the postgraduate course Housing and City at the same institution. Rube concerned the limitations of Brazilian housing programs and possible ways of improving access to housing in the country. For Otero, many of today’s urban problems can be solved within the housing theme.
Otero listed data to inform people the housing situation of Sao Paulo: The city of Sao Paulo has an area of 1500 km2 with an population of more than 11 million. The average
monthly income is around $530. There are 527 thousand people employed in industry but more than 3 million people work in informal market.
The informal settlements occupy 136 km2 in the city, among which there are 1600 favelas and 1100 illegal housing estates. 70% of people from informal settlements earn less then 3 minimum wages. 44 % of the labors attended only elementary school. 23% of adolescents between 15 and 17 did not complete primary education.
Otero and his team (Ciro Pirondi/ Ruben Otero/ Analia Amorim) made an urban plan namely “Complexo Paraisópolis”. This plan mainly aimed at creating a more vibrant community by providing facilities and creative urban designs. Some proposals including a coordinated road network with bicycle lanes, sidewalks and main road axis. Other proposals like community facilities, public space, park, central waste disposal, football fields and so on.
Some creative urban designs including: a floor lift plant, which suggesting an elevator plants to deal with the topography issues and help improve the passing capacity of the community. A high-rise social housing project, which proposing higher density housing typology so as to accommodate more dwellers. At the same time, the design shall meet the varied needs of interior design of houses and use affordable and sturdy materials.
MONICA MATION
“Multi-level forum of Paraisopolis” is a virtual network of organizations, originating from the movement of organizations and Union of Residents in July 1994. They try to bring together entities that work in the community of Paraisopolis. They open to those who share objectives and aim at articulating and integrating actions in a network that contribute to the improvement of the quality of life in the community as a whole. They arrange monthly meetings in the rolling system in the various participating institutions. At the beginning of each year, they select the priority community guidelines and organized working groups with leader for each theme.
Another part of Mation’s presentation was called “Paraisopolis Education - School Equipment Deficit.” They investigated the status quo of the current educational resources of Paraisopolis, including elementary school, high school and the volume of students and classrooms. They also calculated the future demand of educational resources and analyzed the growing trend of students so as to determine balance of the supply and demand of educational resources. They also analyzed the students’ daily behavior pattern so as to better understand students’ needs and the efficiency of their study. They finally came out with some conclusions like the deficit of educational resources were evident. And night students are 3 times more likely to drop out of school than daytime students. According to those findings, some interventions shall be proposed. And a joint effort between municipal, organizations and residents was needed.
MILTON BRAGA
As a member of the architecture firm MMBB, Milton Braga presented the project the firm developed from 2009 to 2014 to revitalize the area along the Antonico River in Paraisópolis. Their main objective was to
transform people’s relationship with the river by creating a non-motorized transportation corridor along the river for people to walk and bike through the settlement. This corridor would include commercial activity, residential upgrading, and public space. In this project, they highlight the importance of ameliorating people’s negative perception of water and transform it to an attractive resource for public life and community engagement. According to Braga, public space works best when it is clearly delimited thus, they incorporated design strategies to discourage residents from occupying with more housing on the proposal’s intervention sites. These included designing a large scale civic center in the middle of the corridor area with an iconic building that incorporates local art and cultural activities and small scale interventions like facade design and allowing construction and expansion for business purposes in the properties along the corridor. Unfortunately, although this project was budgeted for the municipality, it was never built due to the lack of political will and organization to move it forward.
PEP PONS
Pep Pons gave a lecture introducing a housing project proposed by Christian Kerez, a Swiss architect. It is a housing design for Jardim Colombo, São Paulo , Brazil, which was exhibited on A Cidade Informal no Século XXI. The key point of the design is to think about how to increase the quality of space and density in the favela, and how to make architecture without architects. Small housing units are attached to each other to create a variety of public and private spaces. Each house has its own direct access at street level, and a covered garden, as a reference to the type of local construction.
The Paraisópolis Project is a collaboration between the 4th International Architecture Biennale Rotterdam 2009, SQUAT City, and the Housing Secretatiat of the City of São Paulo. In collaboration with the Municipality of São Paulo the 4th IABR is initiating exemplary project implementations in the context of informal settlements. The testsite, Paraisópolis, is with its 80,000 inhabitants one of the largest complex of informal settlements in São Paulo. The Municipality of São Paulo started an upgrading program in 2005 that provides infrastructure, public services and housing for a sustainable development of the area. The new phase of this program foresees exemplary project implementations by international renowned architecture offices that are aiming to introduce new strategies for the informal city.
DANIEL MONTADON
Low income communities within São Paulo do not have areas that are zoned to include open spaces and mobility. Most of the areas that are zoned as this are spread out in the periphery area of the city. Social vulnerability is measured and defined through maps of vulnerability. These maps display where the highest and lowest concentration of vulnerability exists.
Within São Paulo regarding transportation, cars are increasing 65% in ten years while the population has been increasing by 10%. When thinking about transportation you must think about how to make space for cars in this situation. This has been accounted for in the São Paulo TOD strategy that was created last year. The TOD plan also includes the adoption of buses – this is not the same performance
of the subway but it decreases the average commute time by 19 mins. Urban design can be connected to social mobility through sidewalks – for example. If you have a sidewalk of 5 m it is a good situation for the pedestrians – it is obligatory must have a sidewalk of 5 m.
The Strategic Master Plan of 2014 utilizes urban planning strategies to address questions of:
1)Recognize some parts of the city and find some strategical areas to implement some parts
2)Recognize the public transportation
3)Recognize and protect the vulnerable populations and land tenure
The master plan had a very huge participative process was not only the meetings but the proposal on internet to bring contributions – analyzed the contributions, which one to incorporate/not.
The parameters of urban design in the Strategic Master Plan of 2014 axes also include: active facades, guaranteed wide sidewalks, public fruition, demographic density, special zones of social interest that protects the land tenure and social housing, solidarity quota, and land compulsory building and use. The financial alternatives include subsidies at the federal, state, and municipal levels.
The macro-areas bring an alternative for the spread of the occupation in the metropolitan region. There are currently projects planned for the areas. Axes exist that structure the urban transformation, implement the TOD, increase the density in the area, control the density, and high control of the density in other areas.
Concepts of social housing were also discusses. There are five types of special zoning in Sao Paulo. After the urbanization process – only allow the social housing not obligatory because need jobs in the area. The mixed zones of social interest bring diversity to income levels and opportunities.
Two components of Paraisopolis are it is not exactly in the periphery of the city and segregation exists out of the formal market. The social vulnerability is spread into the periphery area specifically. There is a concentration of formal jobs and this is concentrated in the city center. Individual transportation rather than forms of transportation for all has resulted in an unsustainable and chaotic city. This urbanization has spread throughout the areas that are zoned as environmental protection areas.
RAQUEL ROLNIK
On March 4th 2017, Pimentel Walker attended a meeting at the People’s House north of São Paulo, in area called Casa do Povo. The meeting was on March 4th and lasted from 9:00-2:00 pm. The People’s House is a research center that collaborates with social movements in São Paulo. The mission of the center is to track threats of eviction that people living in informal settlements face. The attendees were mostly people that have suffered from tenure insecurity and threats of eviction.
The meeting was an opportunity for members of occupations to share their experiences, understand each other’s experience, raise awareness of social movements, and share resources. Two of the coordinators from Ocupação Anchieta Association, Anderson and Pernam Buco were
in attendance and spoke at the meeting. They went to help other occupations that have gone through similar issues themselves. Both of them found it very rewarding to go and built connections with many of the attendees.
Pimentel Walker had the opportunity to meet with many attendees from different occupations around the city. Brazilian scholar, Raquel Rolnik was one of the influential attendees she met. Rolnik is the former Housing Rights Repertoire for the United Nations Habitat. She is also a faculty member at the University of São Paulo. In her work she led research in collaboration with the public defense group, Public Defenders Office and the Gaspar Garcia Center for Human Rights.
Attendees at the event were informed of a cellphone application that could be very useful to occupations. The application tracks those occupations that are under threat for relocation. The creators also have a web page online. Specifically, the application links research collected through the mapping of legal cases of eviction to determine who is in threat. Overall the meeting was a day for connecting people to resources and strengthening networks through building solidarity with the occupations that are already under threat.