Sao Paulo: Population and Slum Housing
Abstract
About 32% of the world’s urban population live in slums. The problem of poor
housing quality is overwhelmingly concentrated in the developing world. Sao
Paulo has the largest slum population in South America. Here, urban poverty
is concentrated in two types of housing, favelas and corticos. Favelas in Sao
Paulo, unlike Rio de Janeiro, have developed fairly recently. Their rapid
growth dates back to 1980 with their share of the population having jumped
from 5.2% to 19.8% since then. Although both natural change and rural-urban
migration have fallen significantly the housing problem remains immense.
Urban Growth and Sprawl
Figure 1: Land use in Greater Sao Paulo
Sao Paulo is the largest city in the southern hemisphere and referred to by
some as the richest city in the Third World. The population of the metropolitan
area (2000 census) is almost 18 million (Figure 2).
Figure 2: Population Growth in Sao Paulo
In international terms Sao Paulo is a compact urban area. At approximately
21,000 per square mile the population density is more than twice that of Paris
and almost three times that of Los Angeles. Among the six urbanised areas in
the world with more than 15 million people, Sao Paulo has a smaller land area
and a greater population density than only Mumbai and Mexico City. Although
the city has spread considerably in the latter part of the 20th century, the issue
of urban sprawl is a matter of debate. Some see it as a problem, others point
to the fact that the metropolitan area covers less than 1% of the state of Sao
Paulo. According to an article in Metropolis Magazine [October 2000] by
Simon Romero “There is perhaps no better illustration of the dangers of
sprawl than Sao Paulo with its 17 million people, 4 million automobiles and
10,000 miles of streets. The public-transportation system is woefully
inadequate, its three small subway lines are saturated by 2.5 million
passengers each day while an army of illicit minivans competes with
municipal buses to transport twice that number along the city’s crazy-quilt of
streets.”
Metropolitan Sao Paulo has widened the population gap between itself and
Rio de Janeiro to almost seven million [Figure 3]. Between 1991 and 2000
Brazil’s largest metropolitan area increased in population by 15.8%, as
opposed to Rio’s 11.0%. All of Brazil’s other major metropolitan areas also
recorded significant growth. In relative terms the most rapid growth was
recorded by Brasilia. With urbanisation at the 81% level, many of the
country’s social problems such as inequality, poverty and crime are urban
based and require solutions in cities.
Figure 3: Population of major metropolitan areas
Metropolitan Area
1991
Sao Paulo
15,444,941
Rio de Janiero
9,814,574
Belo Horizonte
3,515,542
Porto Alegre
3,147,010
Recife
2,919,979
Salvador
2,496,521
Fortaleza
2,401,878
Brasilia
2,149,921
Curitiba
2,063,654
2000
17,878,703
10,894,156
4,349,425
3,658,376
3,337,567
3,021,572
2,984,689
2,952,276
2,726,556
However, the population growth rate in Sao Paulo (Figure 4) has fallen
considerably in recent decades due to a combination of:
• reduced rural to urban migration
• a lower rate of natural increase
Figure 4: Population growth rate in Greater Sao Paulo
Figure 5 shows the districts of the City of Sao Paulo (10.4 million population),
which generally forms the inner part of the metropolitan area. However, the
City border stretches to the edge of the metropolitan area to the north and to
the south. Between 1980 and 2000 the population of the central area of the
City of Sao Paulo fell by 230,000, a decrease of 30.4%. In contrast, peripheral
districts in the City grew rapidly. In the 1980-2000 period, the central areas
population density fell from 181.5 to 110.3 persons per hectare, while the
density of peripheral districts such as Sapopemba increased from 132.6 to
208.8 persons per hectare. This decentralisation trend mirrors what
happened in MEDC cities much earlier.
Figure 5: Population density in Sao Paulo
The metropolitan area includes Sao Paulo and 39 other neighbouring
administrative areas. This area accounts for almost 20% of Brazil’s industrial
production.
Figure 6 The vast extent of high-rise buildings in Sao Paulo
Variations in the Quality of Life
Although relatively prosperous in terms of the country as a whole, poverty and
unemployment are huge problems. Sao Paulo has the highest unemployment
rate in the country. It is also at the highest rate in recent time as the city is
losing its status as a manufacturing centre and becoming a service
metropolis. The process of deindustrialisation that has affected all MEDC
cities is now impacting significantly on some urban areas in LEDCs.
The extreme inequality in Sao Paulo was highlighted in a report in August
2002 by the city administration. Measuring each district’s quality of life using
the United Nations human development index, the report found that Moema,
the city’s richest district, has a higher standard of living than Portugal and is
only slightly behind Spain. On the other hand, Sao Paulo’s poorest district,
Marsilac, where 8,400 people just maintain a living in favelas scattered across
a patch of surviving Atlantic rainforest, is worse off than even Sierra Leone,
the world’s poorest country.
Figure 7 The tree-lined streets of the affluent Jardins district
Figure 8 A favela on the edge of central Sao Paulo
Low living standards and the resulting social pathologies [crime, vandalism
etc] have had a huge impact on the city in general. In 1999, Sao Paulo
recorded 11,500 homicides, compared to New York’s 671. It is perhaps not
surprising that the affluent elite have assembled the world’s third-largest fleet
of urban helicopters after New York and Tokyo. Sao Paulo’s rich use their
helicopters to hop from rooftop to rooftop to escape the squalor of the streets.
Sao Paulo has 240 helipads to New York’s 10.
The Changing Location of Income Groups
• In the last decade or so, condominiums have emerged at the
periphery of Sao Paulo because of limited space near the centre.
• at the same time corticos have expanded and become more dense in
the central region.
• Different social groups now live in close proximity separated by walls
and other security measures. For example, in Morumbi favelas coexist
with luxury condominiums.
The Slum Housing Problem
It is estimated that substandard housing occupies 70% of Sao Paulo’s area –
approximately 1500 square kilometres. Two million people, 20% of the
population live in favelas while over half a million people live in converted
older homes and even factories in Sao Paulo’s inner core which are known as
corticos. Often whole families share a single room, which may lack electricity
and plumbing. Rat and cockroach infestations are common. More than 60% of
the population growth in the 1980s is considered to have been absorbed by
the favelas.
By the beginning of the 20th century Sao Paulo was socially divided between
the affluent who lived in the higher central districts and the poor who were
concentrated on the floodplains and along the railways. The rapid
acceleration of urbanisation between 1930 and 1980 built on the existing
pattern of segregation. However, by the late 1970s this pattern was beginning
to change with growing numbers of poor migrants spreading into virtually all
areas of the city. The ‘lost decade’ of the 1980s witnessed the rapid
development of shantytowns (favelas) at the urban periphery, and inner-city
slum tenements (corticos). Until the early 1980s, the cortico was the dominant
form of slum housing when the favela broke out of its tradition urban periphery
confines and spread throughout the city to become the new dominant type of
slum. This happened as the newly arrived urban poor sought out every empty
or unprotected urban space. It is estimated that favela residents now
outnumber those living in corticos by 3:1. The rapid spread of the favelas in
the 1980s mixed up the pattern of centre-periphery segregation in Sao Paulo.
However, public authorities constantly removed favelas in the areas valued by
the property market. The action of private property owners regaining
possession of their land has driven favelas to the poorest, most peripheral
and hazardous areas [floodplains, hill slopes etc]. Few favelas remain in wellserved regions, although the largest two Heliopolis and Paraisopolis (Figure
1) are located in these areas.
Heliopolis is Sao Paulo’s largest slum. Established about 30 years ago
heliopolis means ‘city of the sun’ in Greek. People first came to this location to
play football but later they began to build shacks and the favela was
established. One hundred thousand people live here in a mix of absolute and
semi-poverty. Access to facilities is very limited. For example, there is one
library with about 300 books for the whole community. In Paraisopolis almost
43,000 people are crammed into an area of 150 hectares near the CBD and
elite residential areas.
Figure 9: Extracts from the diary of an NGO volunteer worker in the Heliopolis
favela
November 1, 1997 – Heliopolis, Sao Paulo
I am in Sao Paulo. Staying in the Batista community centre in the Heliopolis
favela (slum). Heliopolis is a third stage favela, one that is well established
and has been here for a long time. First stage favelas are the worst – most
often crude shelters under viaducts or bridges. There is the beginnings of one
along the wall of the hospital, where there are shacks along the wall, and
people have planted corn and beans. Second stage are better. They are more
settled looking, though they still consist of shacks that have been thrown
together from whatever their builders could find. Third stage are much more
substantial and permanent looking. The building material is mostly brick block.
However, people are squatters in all the favelas. They do not own the land on
which they have built.
The streets of Helipolis are narrow and full of people and cars.
There are all kinds of small businesses along the street. One guy makes a
living, or tries to, cutting keys, another cutting hair. Women fix each other’s
hair and give each other manicures and pedicures. There are little shops,
bars and poolrooms. One bar has the interesting name of “Blue Mom”. A shop
which sells just about everything is called “Uba Uba Bazaar”, which,
translated, is “Hubba Hubba Bazaar”. There is not much money in Heliopolis,
but there are plenty of ways of making it move around. Drugs are another
way. They are said to be freely available.
November 3, 1997 – Heliopolis, Sao Paulo
There was a broad daylight shootout a short distance from here yesterday. It
was not hard to figure that something rather awful was happening because
several police cars sped by, heedless of speed bumps and sirens blaring, to a
spot behind the hospital. Police helicopters did big circles overhead. At the
end of it, three adults and two small children were dead. It was said to be drug
related. Initially we heard that the children were caught in crossfire. Later we
heard that they had been deliberately killed to distract the police, but that their
killers did not get away. However, they may have been killed by stray police
bullets. We will probably never know what really happened.
Not long ago, two cops were ambushed in traffic on a bridge and shot. The
cops then went to work and cleaned up. By the time they were finished, some
seventy troublesome people had been eliminated.
There is a war here. The cops are one side. The poor, who own little and
have little stake in the new Brazil, are on the other. Many of the poor are
organised into illicit Mafias, dealing in drugs and whatever else will sell. The
justice system either does not work or works much too slowly, and is often
avoided. Things are done more directly by shoot-out and cleansings.
Noisy here. Busses park across the street. Bus drivers hang around and talk
very loudly, even at five in the morning. And always lots of people – lots of
people. People living on top of each other, people pressing against each
other, always crowding, but looking past each other as they walk by on the
street.
Most corticos are located in the central districts – in areas that have
deteriorated but near the city’s jobs and services. However, the increase in
corticos in the periphery is a recent phenomenon. This has usually been due
to residents building other rooms on their lot to rent out and increase income.
People who live in favelas [favelados] and corticos [encorticados] do not like
to be referred to by these terms, fearing prejudice in job applications and
other aspects of like.
The problem of slum housing affects every continent but it is heavily
concentrated in LEDCs. As in the MEDCs the relationship between poverty
and poor housing is very strong (Figure 7). The poor quality of housing is a
considerable hazard to the safely of residents.
Figure 10: Inequality, poverty and slum formation
Figure 11: News report – Fire devastates Sao Paulo shantytown
Saturday, December 21, 2002
Fire devastates Sao Paulo shantytown
8:11:01pm
A fire destroyed great parts of a shantytown in Sao Paulo, Brazil today,
authorities said, leaving one person dead and 1,115 people homeless.
The fire probably started after an explosion in one of the wooden shacks of
the Favela Paraguai, a slum in the eastern Sao Paulo district of Vila Prudente,
Lt Eduardo Fernandes from Sao Paulo’s state civil defence told The
Associated Press.
The blaze then quickly spread to nearby dwellings also made out of wood and
destroyed about 900 slum houses.
Firemen found the body of Manoel Jose de Negeiros, 54, in a burned-down
hut when they had managed to extinguish the flames after three hours,
Fernandes said.
Sao Paulo Mayor Marta Suplicy, visiting the fire site today, said to avoid new
fires in slum areas, the cash-strapped city needed federal funds to finance
housing programmes.
Fires in shantytowns of Brazilian cities are frequent as many of the illegal
settlements are made out of makeshift wooden shacks that lack basic safety
standards and are prone to gas explosions.
The Location of Favelas
The location of squatter settlements is strongly linked to the city’s physical
and environmental situation. A large number are found in municipal and
privately-owned areas:
• near gullies
• on floodplains
• on river banks
• along railways
• beside main roads
• adjacent to industrial areas
These are frequently areas that have been avoided in the past by the formal
building sector because of building difficulties and hazards. In recent years
local government has been particularly concerned with;
• uncontrolled occupation close to watersheds in the southern zone
(concerns about flooding and water contamination)
• the rapid growth of favelas in another environmental preservation
area, the Serra da Cantareira. The concerns here are the destruction
of the original Atlantic forest and landslides.
Figure 12: A favela on the edge of central Sao Paulo
The Transformation of Favelas
Initially favelas are densely packed informal settlements made of wood,
cardboard, corrugated iron and other makeshift materials. Later they are
replaced by concrete block construction. Often only one wall at a time will be
built as a family saves up enough money to buy materials for the next wall.
Then, concrete tiles with replace corrugated iron or other makeshift materials
on the roof.
The large scale improvements in favelas is due to residents’ expectations of
remaining where they are as a result of changes in public policies in the past
20 years from one of slum removal to one of slum upgrading.
Attempts to Tackle the Slum Housing Problem
Over time, a range of attempts have been made to tackle the housing crisis in
Sao Paulo. These include:
• A federal bank (BNH) which funded urban housing projects and lowinterest loans to lower and middle-income homebuyers.
• A state-level cooperatives institute (INCOOP), which helped, build
housing for state workers such as teachers.
• A state-level development company (CODESPAULO) for housing for
low-income families and financing of slum upgrading projects.
• A collaborative private sector/state company scheme (COHAB) to
develop housing for limited-income families
• A municipally managed COHAB for public housing construction, which
also funded self-help projects (“mutiroes”) to upgrade substandard
housing.
During the period 1965 to 1982, over 150,000 housing units were built or
upgraded, mostly through COHAB. Since the early 1980s, because of
cutbacks at federal and state levels, the public housing burden has fallen
more heavily on the municipality. Due to its own financial problems the
number of housing units built by the municipality each year since the mid1980s has averaged less than 6000 a year.
The administration of leftist mayor Luiza Erundina (1989-1992) tried to speed
up public house building. Here the emphasis was on self-help housing
initiatives, known as ‘mutiroes’. The city supplied funding directly to
community groups. The latter engaged local families to build new or renovate
existing housing. However, the annual house-building total only increased to
8000 during this period.
The Rise and Fall of Projeto Cingapura (The Singapore Project)
In 1992 the newly elected mayor Paulo Maluf looked for a more spectacular
solution. The ambitious urban renewal plan, based on the experience of
Singapore is an example of south-south technology and information transfer.
The project ran from its inception in 1995 to early in 2001. It was abandoned
after it had provided only a modest increase in the available housing stock.
At the outset, Sao Paulo’s planners felt that the Singapore model was
especially applicable because of the limited availability and high cost of urban
land in both cities.
•
•
•
Most housing blocks were built next to slum housing whose residents
were to receive priority.
Early buildings were low rise, with higher buildings preferred as the
project advanced.
When built, ownership passed to the municipal COHAB, which
collected rents (R$57.00 per month).
•
•
•
Each new project was assigned a social worker to oversee the transfer
of families from favela to temporary settlements to new housing unit.
Landscaping and leisure areas were included in the layout of
developments.
A criticism has been that no provision was made for small-scale
businesses within the projects.
While there was general encouragement for the initiative a range of problems
resulted in only 14,000 units being constructed as opposed to the 100,000
planned.:
• Only a fraction of the proposed funding was made available
• The unit cost escalated sharply
• Once buildings were occupied, residents began to identify serious
quality of life issues. Living space was widely seen as inadequate.
• Although rents were set modestly they proved beyond the means of
many who fell behind with payments.
A New Strategy
The election of socialist mayor Marta Suplicy in 2000 marked a change in
strategy towards the housing issue:
• The new administration promised to spend $R3 billion on housing
during its term in office.
• The 1000 unfinished Cingapura housing units were to be completed.
• The new strategy would be designed to obtain maximum impact for
minimum cost. The concept of the mutirao [self-help scheme] was
resurrected, assisting families in self-construction or upgrading of their
own homes.
• The house unit cost of self-hep schemes is between $R11,000 and
$R15,000 compared to over $R20,000 for housing units in the
Cingapura Project.
A flagship scheme to alleviate poverty in favelas is under way in Santo Andre.
Figure 13: Social inclusion in Santo Andre, Brazil
Santo Andre, with a current population of 650,000, is part of the Sao Paulo
Metropolitan Area. Santo Andre has been undergoing a period of
transformation, from its industrial past to an expanding tertiary sector. The
economic gap between the rich and poor has grown, exacerbated by the
slowdown of the Brazilian economy during the 1990s. As a result, living
conditions have deteriorated and a number of favelas – areas of extreme
poverty – have emerged.
The municipality is promoting an integrated Programme of Social Inclusion as
a strategy to alleviate poverty. The objective of the programme is to establish
new ways of formulating and implementing local public policies on social
inclusion. Fourteen principal partners, local, national and international, are
actively involved in the programme. Four areas were chosen for the pilot
phase, selected through a participatory budgeting process, resulting in a total
amount of US$5.3 million, which has been invested in the provision of urban
infrastructure and services.
The project has seen the improvement of basic services in some of the worst
neighbourhoods. Micro-credit facilities have been made available to smallscale entrepreneurs, while health care has been made more accessible
through community health agents. Other social programmes have been
implemented including literacy campaigns for adults and programmes aimed
at street children. Recreational facilities have been made available, serviced
plots have been transferred to families and low-income families re-housed in
apartment buildings. An index has been developed to measure social
inclusion and data collection is carried out on a regular basis. One of the most
important results has been the engagement of a wide range of actors and the
creation of effective communication channels. All activities have taken
account gender participation and mainstreaming. The administration intends
to extend the pilot programme to all slum areas in the city, through
differentiated slum upgrading projects, while strengthening the approach
towards regularisation of land tenure. In addition, the programme will attend to
all families facing situations of extreme economic exclusion through a revised
minimum income policy and through the up scaling of existing programmes.
Three initiatives from Santo Andre on Good Governance, Traffic Management
and Administrative Reform are featured on the Best Practices database.
The effective reduction of urban poverty and social exclusion in Santo Andre
is based on a number of key principles:
•
•
•
•
•
•
Well targeted government interventions in the urban sector can foster
citizenship and enable people to create more urban livelihoods
The active participation of the urban poor in decision-making promotes
effective formulation and implementation of local action plans
The participatory budgeting process, an innovative approach to urban
governance and decision-making provides a real voice for the urban
poor in both the allocation and use of municipal and other resources
The Municipality of Santo Andre has shown that while effective
leadership needs to be ensured by the local administration it, in turn,
needs to be devolve decision-making and implementation powers to
the community
Inter-agency collaboration and effective channels of communication
between various actors and stakeholders is critical to successful slum
improvement and reduction of poverty and social exclusion
Principles of equity, civic engagement and security are key to success.
Figure 14: A favela on the periphery of Sao Paulo with high-rise buildings in
the background
Occupation of Buildings by Homeless
In July 2003 more than 4,000 homeless people occupied four abandoned
high-rise blocks in the centre of Sao Paulo. Police prevented the occupation
of two other buildings. This occupation and others was organised by
‘Movimento Sem Teto do Centro’ [Movement of Roofless in Centre]. This
organisation is protesting about the poor record of the authorities in tackling
the homeless problem. They are also angry about the way street sellers are
treated, with the authorities confiscating their goods because they are trading
without licenses. For many homeless families and others, street selling is their
only source of income.