History of the informal settlements of Rio de Janeiro and Mumbai

     

       For this paper the two global cities of Rio de Janeiro and Mumbai have been selected for comparison, with the situations of their informal settlements used as the geographical dimension from which to reveal their different histories, challenges, and attempted solutions. The following research will show that the two city’s informal settlements face differing central problems relating to their survival, Rio de Janeiro’s being the rampant crime and gang activity, and Mumbai’s relating to the sanitation and water access of their informal settlements. Each city’s informal settlement will be first examined in their formation, followed by a look at some of the more serious challenges facing each, and ending with some of the various solutions proposed and implemented to address these challenges.

       Rio de Janeiro is one of the largest cities in Brazil, with a population breaching 14 million inhabitants (Hays-Mitchell & Godfrey, 2011). It is a hub of financial and business services, and as part of the Sao Paulo - Rio de Janeiro metropolitan region is responsible for one third of Brazil’s GNP (Hays-Mitchell & Godfrey, 2011).

       The city of Mumbai is India’s most populated city, with over 16 million people (McFarlane, 2007). It is India’s leader in financial and producer services, and operates these on a global scale (McFarlane, 2007). The city generates nearly half of all direct central revenue produced in India, and its inhabitants garner the highest per capita earnings anywhere on the subcontinent (McFarlane, 2007).

Development of each city’s informal settlements

       The city of Mumbai has had immense problems with a shortage of housing for its inhabitants for more than 150 years, and even after India was granted independence the problem persisted (Nijman, 2008). In fact the dilemma grew when in the first ever census - conducted on the surrounding informal settlements of Mumbai in 1971 - showed that 79% of the inhabitants had only been their since the 1960’s (Nijman, 2008). Then, a decade, later the situation got even worse, with a shortage of accommodations reaching over one million, and as many as 20 individuals sharing the single room dwellings typical in the informal settlements (Nijman, 2008). From the period 1976 to 1991 the population of those living in informal settlements in the Greater Mumbai area went from just over 2 million to over 5 million, and now made up over half the total population of the entire area (Nijman, 2008).

       Beginning in the onset of the 1990’s, India plunged into a neoliberal political reform, and this brought with it the principles of globalization and privatization (Mahmud, 2009). This entailed the curtailing of social spending on the welfare state, as well as the switch to a more flexible workforce through the rise of employment in the informal sector (Mahmud, 2009). The political landscape was changing and elections began mimicking the West in their made for television performances, fully backed by wealthy sponsors (Mahmud, 2009).

       Before the neoliberal agenda of India took hold, informal settlements were relatively protected by the courts in that they had to be provided for with decent housing if they were to be resettled from their current location of habitation (Mahmud, 2009). The courts recognized that suitable housing was necessary for the development of life, which was a right that everyone held (Mahmud, 2009). This view of the courts changed, however, when neoliberalism ushered in its new set of priorities (Mahmud, 2009). The courts now viewed those inhabiting informal settlements as a practice of individuals confiscating public land for their own private use, and that providing the inhabitants with resettlement schemes was only leading to more people entering the into the city looking for housing (Mahmud, 2009). Further, they held that by providing for them once they were to be relocated was no better than rewarding those who had committed theft (Mahmud, 2009).

       The informal settlements of Rio de Janeiro, termed ‘favelas’, grew out of the overcrowding in the city, which began just before the start of the twentieth century; industrialization of the city was drawing in vast crowds from around the country and tenement housing was reaching their capacities before the poorest were housed (O’Hare & Barke, 2003). So the people decided to build themselves informal shacks on the hillsides (O’Hare & Barke, 2003). It wasn’t until 1947 that programs were commissioned by the local government to try and stop these settlements from growing, under the name Squatter Settlement Extinction Commission (O’Hare & Barke, 2003). The programs that began in 1947 and continued through into the 1970’s would tear down targeted favelas and move their residents to new living quarters which would often be of poor construction and far from the city centre (O’Hare & Barke, 2003).

       At the same time as this was happening, newly constructed roads were enabling buses to delve ever deeper into the rural surroundings of Rio and transport the masses into its vicinity, which triggered a massive increase of both favela building and city residence (O’Hare & Barke, 2003). In just one decade the population of both the city and the surrounding favelas nearly doubled (O’Hare & Barke, 2003). The 1980’s brought another wave of population explosion, but this time only for the favelas (over four times the growth of the city during the same period), as much of South America’s governments revealed that they had plunged their economies into massive debt and mismanagement (O’Hare & Barke, 2003). This triggered hyper-inflation, recessions, and IMF backed loans that culminated in making life in these places very unaffordable, and so the untaxed favelas began to take in the newly minted poor (O’Hare & Barke, 2003).

Challenges facing each informal settlement

       For the informal settlements of Mumbai, some of the greatest troubles faced by the inhabitants are those pertaining to health risks posed by insufficient sanitation facilities and water resources, as well as the insecurity of their settlements.

       As far as enacting laws dealing with informal settlements, each individual state is largely left to determine their own chosen coarse of redress (Burra, 2005). The only land the state has to follow nationally prescribed solutions to is in regards to the holdings of the central government (Burra, 2005). For some time now there has been a national plan to deal with informal settlements, but it is still in draft form yet to be released (Burra, 2005). It includes a provision that the inhabitants of informal settlements should be given tenure of the land they occupy, and that if relocation of any is deemed necessary, that they should be given adequate new shelter (Burra, 2005). The problem is that while the lands fall under the protection of the national government - restricting the evictions of the informal settlement inhabitants on state-owned land - the agencies within it that actually own the public lands continues to deny the inhabitants of informal settlements any provision of basic services or the tenure of the lands they reside on (Burra, 2005). Identification cards were issued in 1976 to some inhabitants of the informal settlements who had met various eligibility requirements, and with this came amenities such as electricity, water and sanitation facilities (Burra, 2005). Despite this positive push forward for the welfare of informal settlement inhabitants, those who were habituated on land belonging to the central government agencies were nevertheless denied the amenities because the agencies refused to participate in the state program (Burra, 2005).

       While land tenure is a vital issue for informal settlement inhabitants, sanitation and drinking water are even greater problems for the inhabitants. Because of the various diseases that spawn in such conditions, nearly half of all deaths in the informal settlements are caused by them (Mahmud, 2009). Further, the informal settlements have an overall death rate that places all the inhabitants at a 50% risk of fatality over those who reside outside of the informal settlements (Mahmud, 2009). Those who do manage to escape disease are still up against a quality of air that is as damaging to an individual as inhaling over two packs of cigarettes in a 24 hour period (Mahmud, 2009).

       Washroom facilities in the informal settlements are a limited resource throughout these areas of Mumbai. While a survey conducted in 2001 found that, on average, each public toilet accommodated 81 people, there were some areas where a toilet was shared between upwards of well over 200 (MacFarlane, 2007). Many of these facilities are not connected to sewers, and so regular removal of excrement is necessary along with maintenance, which makes them very susceptible to clogging and disuse (MacFarlane, 2007). Often the lineups for the faculties can last for up to two hours (MacFarlane, 2007). Because of this, many choose to use the surrounding open land, particularly women, who despite risking torment by the populace, would rather that then have to sit a top a filthy toilet seat (MacFarlane, 2007). Women usually will have to wait until after the men have used the facilities in the morning to have their turn (MacFarlane, 2007). This is combined with the general humility they face of using washrooms in the public’s view, and so they will often wait until they are hidden by darkness as well as reducing their intake of food and water to lessen the need of making use of the facilities in the first place (MacFarlane, 2007). As women are in charge of the maintenance of the home and production of the meals, they face increasing risk of disease as water used for washing, cooking and possible defecation is within their vicinity and is not always properly separated (MacFarlane, 2007).

       It is the women of the informal settlements that take most of the brunt from poor water amenities (Bapat & Agarwal, 2003). They are the ones that will inevitably find themselves at all hours of the day or night, waiting in long lineups to obtain water supplies for the day (Bapat & Agarwal, 2003). They will carry great weights of water over unstable ground surfaces and through far reaching areas of land (Bapat & Agarwal, 2003). This is on top of the great stress women endure when they are not able to secure an adequate supply of water for the day, and have no choice but to resort to purchasing very expensive water if they can afford it, or often begging for water from neighbors or businesses (Bapat & Agarwal, 2003).

       Women are at a disadvantage again, as they form the majority of the victims pertaining to crime and domestic violence (Roy, Jockin & Javed, 2004).  It appears that wife beating is a fairly common occurrence among households, and most women either feel it is the husbands right to do so, or that there is little hope for changing the situation (Parkar, Fernandes & Weiss, 2003). Some, however, do find help in various women’s help centers located in the informal settlements, and some of their husbands have even been convinced to seek treatment for their addictions to narcotics and/or alcohol; the addictions are often a contributing component to at least the amount or extent of the beatings wives receive (Parkar et al., 2003). Another factor that seems to affect the abuse of wives is that of unemployment; when husbands cannot obtain work their wives will seek out employment, and often husbands will either become suspicious of their wives activities outside the home, or simply will grow a poor temperament from staying idle (Parkar et al., 2003).

       However it is not only women who face violence within the informal settlements. Ethnic tensions can easily explode out of nowhere between different groups, and there is the existence of gangs (Parkar et al., 2003). Some residents have reported that they feel a cause of the violence stems from the lack of religious leaders/structures for the men to receive guidance from (Parkar et al., 2003). To aid in fight against violence community police have been created; by 2004, 65 teams - consisting of seven women and three men from the informal settlements along with a police officer - have been established throughout Mumbai’s informal settlements (Roy, Jochin & Javid, 2004). Though crime and violence hasn’t been completely eradicated, the informal settlements have become much less violent than in the past, and police officials even report that the informal settlements have quite low crime rates today - lower than parts of the city (Yardley, 2011). Visitors of Mumbai’s informal settlements can now safely travel through without risk of endangerment (Yardley, 2011).

       In contrast to Mumbai’s informal settlements, Rio de Janeiro’s informal settlements’s most urgent problems stem from the incredible amount of violence and drug related activities that have plagued the areas for decades. Overall, Brazil’s largest cause of death for those aged 15-44 is attributed to murder, and Rio contributes to this greatly as one of the deadliest cities in the country (Hinton, 2008); in the 21 year period, between 1979 and 2000, forty-eight thousand people perished at the hands of guns (Neate & Platt, 2006).

       The gang activity largely began in the 1980’s, as Rio de Janeiro was ushered into a new found democracy, and drug-trafficking picked up tremendous momentum; as Europe and North America became sought after markets for Andean cocaine, Rio became a prime location (Arias, 2006). The attraction to Rio was due to its large shipping industry, and the favelas of Rio provided the perfect place for shipments to layover before they were sent on to their final destinations (Arias, 2006). A local market was also soon developed, and the favelas became even more desirable; many of the favelas were situated in the proximity of middle class neighborhoods in which they dealt, and the narrow and haphazard street layouts made it difficult for police to pursue them (Souza, 2005). On top of this the favelas provided an abundant labour pool of poor youth to take up the many different positions available in the trafficking of drugs (Souza, 2005). Soon after the drugs and gangs entered the favelas, travel between the favelas became dangerous for residents as the gangs controlling the local drug trade established their own territories and rivalries turned deadly (Souza, 2005).

       Before the gangs of the 1980’s, the residents of the favelas were in the midst of collectively organizing themselves, statewide, to put political pressure on the government’s efforts since the 1960’s to remove them from the valuable land they occupied (Arias, 2006). As the local gangs continued to establish themselves within their favela neighborhoods, they also began to embed themselves within the functioning of them; with their training in organizing techniques taught to them by political prisoners, they subverted the communities’ efforts and put in place their own agenda (Arias, 2006).

       The gangs acted as intermediaries between the local government and the community; the gangs exchanged bribes and political influence with their communities for their continuance of their drug operations, as well as to help them gather the necessities their communities needed for their survival (Arias, 2006). Though the Residents’ Associations used to have tremendous political power over the favelas before the gangs moved in, now they were forced to work with the drug-traffickers and turn a blind eye to their operations (Arias, 2006). The politicians were not the only corrupt parts of the state, as the various police and military divisions had a long history of letting the gangs operate as long as they received their cut (Arias, 2006).

       For the inhabitants of the favelas, gangs maintained a degree of security for them against violence and theft by other residents (Arias, 2006). The gangs kept this order to avoid excess violence that may have lead to social upheaval by the residents, as well as to stay under the radar of the public and the police (Souza, 2005). The gangs also provided the residents with small loans, as well as partnering with neighborhood members to host festivals for the local populace (Arias, 2006). These efforts all helped the gangs to maintain the support they needed so that their activities could continue, especially when violence from their own activities created tension between them and the community (Arias, 2006).

       The heads of gangs started many legal businesses, while members in lower standing could be killed if they showed they might have had enough to become independent of their bosses (Zaluar, 2000). Often the gang members would be attracted by the luxuriant lifestyle the other members seem to live, but these riches would typically fade fast, from the costs of bribes, attorneys’ fees, and of course their own habits of living beyond their means (Zaluar, 2000). When some members felt the need to increase their earnings they would often recruit the new young members to do their work for them; the rookies would be equipped with guns and commanded to commit theft from various members of the community or other gangs, and in these acts many of these youths’ lives were brought to an untimely end (Zaluar, 2000).

       The gang life pervaded into the lives of the youth it ensnarled; teachers no longer had control over their class, or civic leaders influence over the neighborhood youth (Zaluar, 2000). Many of the children would carry weapons with them, and sometimes they couldn’t even go to school for fear of being shot due to conflicts between each other that would were now settled by bullets (Zaluar, 2000). As the informal economy had grown in the passing decades, even the local vendors within the favelas had begun to establish their own ties with the gangs; when once their activities provided a legal, alternative path to formal sectors they could no longer engage in, they now dealt in stolen goods (Zaluar, 2000). Their goods would come from robberies of other residents or off of hijacked trucks, as well as in the form of contraband smuggled in from other countries (Zaluar, 2000).

       Rio de Janeiro’s informal settlement solutions

       Beginning in 2008, Rio de Janeiro initiated its first stage of its ‘pacification’ program (Muggah & Mulli, 2012). The plan had helicopters, armored trucks, and even tanks involved in the operations (Fonseca & Moraes, 2012). The favelas have seen many police raids, except in the past they were targeted at individuals belonging to certain gangs, whereas this time it was an all-encompassing capture of the entire network of them (Fonseca & Moraes, 2012). The plan consisted of three stages in all, beginning with an all-out attack on the gangs contained within the favelas (Muggah & Mulli, 2012). Then an occupation of the areas would follow, leading to the installation of specially trained police officers to keep the peace while targeted welfare initiatives could be set in order (Muggah & Mulli, 2012). The occupations would last from anywhere between 100 to 150 days (Muggah & Mulli, 2012). As the program has rolled out, progress has been shown as one of the latest favelas to be pacified, Rocinha in 2010, was taken hold of without the need to fire a gun even once (Muggah & Mulli, 2012). The number of murders in Rio de Janeiro in 2006 was 50.3 per 100,000 people, but that number has now nearly been cut in half, at 26.7 in 2010 (Sainte Croix, 2011).

       There are, however, problems with the program. For one, many of the favela’s residents feel the progress has been too slow, and that only the favelas directly bordering the affluent communities are being targeted (Muggah & Mulli, 2012). There are those that also feel that the whole scheme may just be to give some favalas a polishing up before the oncoming Olympics in 2016 (Muggah & Mulli, 2012). Another major problem with the pacifications is that many of the favela’s household incomes were derived from drug-related activities or support from the gangs that made up the informal economy they lived on (Muggah & Mulli, 2012). To add to this, once a favela becomes pacified, the residences are often installed with proper utility meters and services, which they had previously obtained fro free, illegally (Muggah & Mulli, 2012). With no work it becomes very hard for residents to pay for these new services (Muggah & Mulli, 2012). The plan is not providing the educational opportunities needed for the youth who now find themselves jobless and in need of guidance (Muggah & Mulli, 2012). 

       Lastly, as many of the favelas receiving pacification are located above the city, with spectacular views of the surrounding ocean and hillsides, and now gentrification has begun; the middle-classes have begun to seek cheaper accommodations then those found in the city, and so the poor are now being pushed out with the massive rise in housing prices, leaving them little choice but to move farther out into the periphery (Muggah & Mulli, 2012). By the end of 2010, 18 favelas in total had received pacification (Muggah & Mulli, 2012). Though crime and violence is a tremendous challenge for Rio’s informal settlements, the quality of the structures and tenure of the properties is still a great problem.

       Rio’s government has proposed new schemes for the upgrading of informal settlements. Various favalas in Rio are being targeted for redevelopment in Brazil’s Growth Acceleration Program, in an initiative to invest $800 billion dollars into the countries infrastructure (Maresch, 2010). There are plans to construct health care facilities, houses, libraries, movie theatres, and a monorail stretching six kilometers (Maresch, 2010). In total, the plans are to include nearly 600 inner-city favelas (Maresch, 2010).

Mumbai’s informal settlement solutions

       One solution to address Mumbai’s sanitation problems has been the implementation of the Slum Sanitation Programme (SSP). It began in 1997 with matching funds from both the World Bank - in the form of credit - and the state itself, to supply the water, electricity and sewers (McFarlane, 2007). NGO’s were contracted to construct the blocks of toilets, and then maintain them for one years time, after which the responsibility was to be transferred to the community, who would then take over in the form of a community-based organization that would operate on a monthly collected fee from the users of the facilities (McFarlane, 2007). The government of Mumbai has been critical of the program and has complained that it is not moving fast enough, that only 328 blocks have been established in eight years time - five years behind schedule (McFarlane, 2007). Despite this criticism, over 300,000 informal settlement inhabitants now have access to bathroom facilities because of the SSP (McFarlane, 2007).

       Besides the rate at which the program is able to stay on schedule, there are other challenges facing it. Not all completed blocks always work, since water and electricity bills are not always paid on time for lack of funds (McFarlane, 2007). Another problem stems from the layout of water pipes inside the informal settlements; water sources are most abundant where there is more clustering of industry, which leaves some large sections without toilet blocks (McFarlane, 2007). For some blocks that require more water than the system can give them, they are left with no option but to rely on expensive water tankers (McFarlane, 2007). Even when blocks have received enough water from the system there is the existence of ‘water mafias’ who interfere with the connection and thwart the system of payment needed for the continued operation of the facilities (McFarlane, 2007). 

       Many blocks do not even connect into the sewer systems because of the great expense involved, and so septic systems are used in place (McFarlane, 2007). They become frequently plagued with blockages or fill faster than current servicing is able to keep up with (McFarlane, 2007). It is estimated that less than a third of all blocks are actually connected to the sewers, so this last problem is indeed one that presents a grave need of attention (McFarlane, 2007). An extension of the sewer systems are said to be in the works, but aren’t scheduled until some time in the future, and for now many of the established blocks will remain out of commission - in some instances for a number of years (McFarlane, 2007).

       Dharavi, a prominent informal settlement in Mumbai, is in the midst of having a massive redevelopment with a plan proposed by architect and developer Mukesh Mehta (Devich, 2008). The land that the informal settlement sits on is a very sought after piece of real estate that is located right next to the downtown core of Mumbai (Devich, 2008). The plan will allow private developers access to it to build offices and shopping malls for the more affluent of the city (Devich, 2008). To free up the space they need to do this they must build apartments to house the current residents of the informal settlement (Devich, 2008). The apartments will come free of charge, and after a set amount of time the residents can even sell them (Devich, 2008). While this at first may sound like a great deal for the residents of the informal settlements, some have grave concerns of how the many small enterprises contained within Dharavi will be able to operate when their mobility is restricted by the elevated compartmentalization of the housing structures (Devich, 2008).                  
    

       These small businesses are the reason why so many in-migrate to Mumbai’s informal settlements; the multitude of industries include leather manufacturing, garment manufacturing, print makers, food processing, and most of all recycling, which all contribute to generating nearly one billion dollars worth of products a year (Yardley, 2011). While many remain quite poor in the sinformal settlements, there are still those who work their way up the chain of accumulated skill-sets and end up running their own businesses (Yardley, 2011).

       In conclusion, the two global cities of Rio de Janeiro and Mumbai clearly have great challenges to each with the informal settlements each has developed over the years. Mumbai’s informal settlements show that the sanitation and water supply are vital necessities that bring about depredation of both physical and mental health when they are not adequately accessible. For Rio de Janeiro the underlining problem appears to be the proliferation of the gangs that have usurped leadership of the favelas, as they have weaved their influence and operations throughout the lives of the inhabitants that share the neighborhoods with them. While the various solutions that have been carried out by the state and other groups have indeed made progress in alleviating some of the challenges mentioned earlier, both cities’ informal settlements appear to be lacking in their efforts in giving attention in their schemes to the livelihoods of the inhabitants. Further, for both cities’ informal settlements, their appears to be a need to address the mental anguish of the inhabitants, and some form of leadership and guidance seems necessary to provide hope for them and to unite their shared futures. Another issue that was brought up is that each cities’ informal settlements appear to have at-risk groups that may require special attention: Mumbai’s female population and Rio de Janeiro’s youth. There also seems to be a great need for proper political representation for the inhabitants of the informal settlements, as they have a substantial share of votes, or in Mumbai’s case the majority. Whether this help comes from the state, from within the informal settlements, or from some combination of the two, these massive groups of struggling people need assistance to not only live in environments where there health is protected, but to also have their human capital fostered and utilized and to connect back into the rest of society.