Rocinha (the little field) now the biggest favela in town
Rio, blog (March 21, 2010)
In Portuguese, the word rocinha (pronounced ho-seen-yah) a literally means a tract of land that has been cleared for planting. It is also used colloquially to refer to any field or backwoods area and that is exactly what Rocinha was in the late 1800s. It started as a settlement near the sugar plantations where poor ranch hands and their families lived. At that time, Rio was a land of opportunity for Brazilians from all over the country and thousands of poor folks from all over Brazil filed into the city to work in or around the sugar trade. When the financial crisis of 1929 occurred, Brazil’s sugar business took a major hit. Thousands of workers were jobless practically overnight and many fled to the hillsides of Rio, where they were still close to the plantations, but didn’t have to pay for rent or other services. The largest of these hillside communities was Rocinha in the far south end of the city.
And so began the poor neighborhoods of Rio de Janeiro, known as favelas. They are essentially squatter settlements; residents move in and find a corner of land on which to make a home…if you can call it that. Homes generally start out as large tents made of second-hand materials, like cardboard boxes, string and plastic bags. Over the years, the family will begin to swap these materials for sheets of wood, then ceramic blocks. A lucky few get water inside their homes by digging to the water table below, but most end up hauling it every day from streams nearby at the bottom of the hill. Eventually, a family might even get electricity through an illegal electric line tap, known as a gato (cat) or through an electricity reseller. Some residents or business owners on the edges of the favelas who get electricity from the city often resell it to families on the hillside, at a profit. Electric lines are over-tapped, streams are polluted, and public services are practically nil. The hillsides are communities with strong ties (many of them consisting of large extended families) and around 50–100 homes stacked on top of one another. As children grow and have their own kids, more houses get stacked on. Combine a dozen of these hillsides and you have a favela.
In the 1990s, Rocinha went from around 12,000 domiciles to around 25,000, with an estimated population of 125,000 by the end of the decade. There are currently over 500 favelas in Rio, representing over 40% of the population of the city. The growth of the favelas in Rio is increasing at a rate of 30% per year, while the growth rate of the city is only around 11% annually. The favelas are literally taking over. Since the growth of drug trafficking in the 1970s, the favelas have been increasing in power and wealth and some say that the Rio government is badly corrupted by ties to the favela drug money. Besides the drug trade, favelas also dominate Carnaval and every samba school that heads down the parade route is based in one of the favelas. This is a legitimate source of income for the favelas, but also a source of political power struggles. In 2005, for example, the president of the Mangueira samba school was murdered for not choosing a drug trafficker’s girlfriend to be the queen of the parade.
To protect their interests, traffickers in the favelas operate sophisticated security forces, usually consisting of the neighborhood’s youth, heavily armed and trained. They work long hours every day watching for intruders or other threats, including city police, residents of other favelas, or any unwelcome visitors. Street wars among the favelas and between favelas and the police are commonplace in Rio.
Although Rio’s favelas are unique because of their privileged position on the hillsides overlooking the coastline and encroaching on the rich communities below, Rio is not the only place in Brazil with so many favelas. In fact, the highest concentration of favelas is located on the outskirts of Sao Paulo in the Capao Redondo favela (meaning circular brush area), the most dangerous favela in the world. Rio takes second place and the cities of Fortaleza, Curitiba, Belo Horizonte, Salvador, and Belem all have significant favela populations.
See also: Visitors Include Slums in their Tours of Rio
