{"id":154519,"date":"2014-07-22T13:28:31","date_gmt":"2014-07-22T16:28:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/?p=154519"},"modified":"2014-08-22T13:32:26","modified_gmt":"2014-08-22T16:32:26","slug":"unstable-macrometropolis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/unstable-macrometropolis\/","title":{"rendered":"Unstable Macrometropolis"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"The

L\u00e9o Ramos<\/span>The Piratininga neighborhood of Guarulhos: the survey took into account variables such as housing, infrastructure and demographic characteristicsL\u00e9o Ramos<\/span><\/p><\/div>\n

Certain cities can be \u201cread\u201d like either a portrait or a map. As portraits, during the process of slumification so visible in recent decades, we saw the precarious shanties, substandard structures, and improvised \u201cadditions\u201d in which thousands of \u201cinvisible\u201d residents live, virtually on top of each other, along the imaginary borders of Brazilian cities. As maps, we find in the geographical surveys, by analyzing meticulously compiled statistics and cross-checking data from other research, details about the locations and conditions of the \u201cprecarious settlements\u201d in the territories. That was the purpose of the study entitled Diagn\u00f3stico dos assentamentos prec\u00e1rios nos munic\u00edpios da macrometr\u00f3pole paulista (Diagnosis of Precarious Settlements in the Municipalities of the S\u00e3o Paulo Macrometropolis), coordinated by researcher Eduardo Marques, of the Center for Metropolitan Studies (CEM), one of the Research, Innovation and Dissemination Centers (RIDC) supported by FAPESP. Also involved were geographers Daniel Waldvogel and Donizete Cazolato, statistician Edgard Fusaro, and political scientist Mariana Bittar.<\/p>\n

\u201cPrecarious settlements include favelas and clandestine and illegal subdivisions, three temporary solutions to the housing problem,\u201d says Marques, a professor at the the University of S\u00e3o Paulo Faculty of Philosophy, Languages and Literature, and Human Sciences (FFLCH-USP). \u201cThere is a huge variety of situations, but these precarious areas usually house poor people who have little access to infrastructure and services, especially sanitary sewer systems.\u201d In order to identify the precarious settlements, the study used variables like housing, infrastructure, and demographic aspects such as the level of education and income achieved by the head of the household.<\/p>\n

Conducted at the request of the Paulista Metropolitan Planning Company (Emplasa) and the Campaign for Housing and Urban Development (CDHU), the study updates the methodology used in an earlier work conducted by the Ministry of Cities. In 2005, based on data from the 2000 Census, the favela population of the S\u00e3o Paulo macrometropolis was calculated at about 3.17 million. By 2010, base year of the new study using 2010 Census data, there were 3.8 million residents living in precarious conditions in the region\u2019s 113 municipalities, an area of 31,500 square kilometers that encompasses the metropolitan regions of S\u00e3o Paulo (RMSP), Campinas (RMC), Baixada Santista (RMBS), and Vale do Para\u00edba and Litoral Norte (RMVP-LN), as well as the urban agglomeration of Jundia\u00ed (AUJ) (see map). There was, therefore, considerable growth, from 13.5% to 14.3% of the total population of those municipalities. \u201cHowever, those figures conceal tremendous variation among regions,\u201d Marques observes. \u201cIn the S\u00e3o Paulo Metropolitan Region, the percentage fell from 15% to 14.5%. Meanwhile, in Baixada Santista, the number rose from 18.1% to 20.5%; and in the Campinas region it jumped from 9.9% to 14.5%–i.e., a significant change, suggesting that intense slumification is occurring. All regions showed an increase in absolute numbers, but in the state capital the percentage increase was lower than the rate of growth in the population as a whole. To a certain degree, the problem has become more widely dispersed.<\/p>\n

\"082-085_Assentamentos_221\"<\/a>Marques believes that several factors contribute to this scenario. \u201cThe process of slumification has been going on for decades now, caused by poverty and the absence of housing policies that could satisfy the demand. In general terms, it is the product of the way in which urbanization came about in Brazil (and the way it continues to occur, albeit at a slower pace),\u201d he says. Over the long term, one possible solution would involve reducing poverty and significantly increasing the supply of affordable housing, but given the way that the metropolises became established, the question has become more complicated. \u201cFrequently the availability of land for construction and the land distribution market can be obstacles to solutions for precariousness. That is the case in the S\u00e3o Paulo Metropolitan Region. Enacting urban zoning laws and making good land available for planning are becoming crucial\u2014and statutes like the Special Social Interest Zones (Zeis) called for in the Master Plan, now being discussed in S\u00e3o Paulo, are heading in that direction,\u201d Marques says. The consequences for S\u00e3o Paulo, from the cartographic standpoint, are low urban quality and a poor standard of living for a significant segment of the population, accompanied by a decline in the environmental and urban conditions in the state\u2019s cities.<\/p>\n

There are no rules that dictate the geographical location of the precarious settlements. In the S\u00e3o Paulo Metropolitan Region, many are concentrated on the outskirts of the cities. \u201cOnly a few sizeable favelas are found in the more central, wealthier area. This is the result of a lengthy process of expulsion of smaller slums from the more central areas, causing their residents to try to settle in the few spaces that still exist\u2014all increasingly farther from the city center. The illegal subdivisions, for their part, were already established in the more distant areas and in fact, were responsible for most of the peripheral expansion that began in the 1960s. The combination of those two processes intensified the patterns of social segregation in S\u00e3o Paulo and other metropolitan regions,\u201d says Marques, disapprovingly.<\/p>\n

Outside the \u201cNormal\u201d<\/strong>
\nThe Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE) prefers the term \u201csubnormal agglomerations\u201d to refer to the urban zones in which census classification finds a certain degree of complexity, such as embankments, shanties, favelas, invasions by squatters, huts in wooded areas, homes built on piles over water, and clandestine subdivisions. Areas having 50 or more residences, marked by a series of housing inadequacies, i.e., structures not in compliance with urban planning standards, are considered by the IBGE as \u201csubnormal.\u201d The other urban zones are classified by the IBGE simply as \u201cnot special.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThis definition, however, was made prior to the census, since it was used to organize the data collection effort, so the information is out of date. We should emphasize, however that the term, \u2018subnormal\u2019 did not result from a mistake by the IBGE, since its use was not meant to express precariousness, but rather to organize the institute\u2019s work. The collected data have been standardized so it makes sense to use them for other studies, but to circumvent their limitations,\u201d says Eduardo Marques. That was the basis for the work by the CEM, which used information from IBGE to identify the precarious settlements and included both \u201csubnormal\u201d agglomerations and the \u201cnot special\u201d zones that had similar social and urban characteristics, in order to correct possible distortions.<\/p>\n

Definitions aside, subnormal agglomerations and precarious settlements convey an image of the fragile forms of housing that are scattered throughout the vulnerable parts of large cities, awaiting effective public policies. \u201cHousing is crucial, not only for its central role in the quality of life for people who depend on government policies, but because it organizes the structure of a city. This means that it is in everyone\u2019s interest, regardless of social class and not limited to the direct beneficiaries, that massive, diversified housing policies be drawn up and redistributive policies of land zoning adopted,\u201d the researcher says.<\/p>\n

The CEM study also examined the management tools used in housing policy. \u201cBrazil has been stockpiling the knowledge needed to develop housing policies to handle the problems that have existed since the early 1990s. The learning process has survived several administrations,\u201d Marques comments. As to the accuracy of the theory, he says: \u201cCertainly the development of diversified policies that involve massive production of new housing units for the lower-income population, the legalization of subdivisions, and the urbanization of favelas is the right path. The technical knowledge has been gathered over several decades, but this kind of policy is expensive and takes a long time,\u201d the researcher says. On the imprecision of practice: until such public policies are implemented, Brazil\u2019s cities will continue to grow haphazardly. As for the favelas, as Carlos Drummond de Andrade wrote \u201cwhile people are out there counting them, others are popping up,\u201d (Cr\u00f4nica das favelas nacionais [Chronicle of Brazil\u2019s Favelas], Jornal do Brasil, October 6, 1979).<\/p>\n

Project<\/strong>
\nCEM – Center for Metropolitan Studies (No. 2013\/07616-7<\/a>); Grant mechanism<\/strong> Research, Innovation and Dissemination Center (RIDC); Principal investigator<\/strong> Marta Teresa da Silva Arretche (CEM); Investment<\/strong> R$7,109,808.20 for the entire RIDC (FAPESP).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"3.8 million people are living in precarious favelas in S\u00e3o Paulo State","protected":false},"author":515,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[165],"tags":[201,203,222,239,247],"coauthors":[1308],"class_list":["post-154519","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-humanities","tag-anthropology","tag-architecture","tag-demography","tag-geography","tag-medicine"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/154519","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/515"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=154519"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/154519\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=154519"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=154519"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=154519"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=154519"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}