Metropolitics

Marielle Franco and the Fight for the City Statute in Rio de Janeiro

Ty Redden — 2025-02-14T06:00:00Z

Marielle Franco's 2018 assassination roiled social media and sent shockwaves through activist communities. The subsequent investigation revealed that her death was a part of a larger land-grabbing plot enacted by militias and enabled by local politicians. This case study explores the City Statute and its relationship to housing struggles—particularly, how the City Statute has forged a brutal partnership of oppression in Rio de Janeiro's most vulnerable neighborhoods.
---- Series: Horizons in

- Essays / Brazil, Rio de Janeiro, militias, favela, informal settlements, local politics, politics, race, gender, activism

Changes in Contemporary Brazilian Housing Policy: The Dismantling of Social Housing and Grassroots Mobilization

Thalles Vichiato Breda — 2022-10-21T05:00:00Z

Thalles Vichiato Breda argues that since 2016, with the rise of right-wing governments in Brazil, the federal social-housing policy has been dismantled, resulting in increasing housing precariousness and making room for grassroots mobilization.
In 2014, roughly 80 families engaged in a land occupation on the outskirts of São Carlos, in São Paulo State in Brazil. The objective of the occupation was to put pressure on the local government so that the families could access the social-housing

- Debates / housing, social housing, Brazil, housing policy

The Brazilian Experience of Financialization Through Urban Redevelopment: The Case of “Urban Operations”

Laisa Eleonora Marostica Stroher — 2020-12-01T06:00:00Z

Laisa Stroher examines the history of large-scale urban regeneration projects in Brazil and shows how a policy instrument initially designed to respond to a lack of public funding has morphed into a tool that has helped transform urban land into a financial asset, leading ultimately to the displacement of populations without delivering on the initial social promises.
---- Series: Cities in the Age of Financialization Large-scale urban development projects and their contradictions feature

- From the Field / financialization, urban regeneration, urban development, Urban Operations (Brazil), Brazil, São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, redevelopment, urban planning, real estate, Latin America, South America, displacement

Rio de Janeiro: Storms, Militia, and Urban Development

Leandro Benmergui & Rafael Soares Gonçalves & translated by Oliver Waine — 2019-11-08T06:00:00Z

The dramatic consequences of storms at the beginning of 2019 in a favela in Rio de Janeiro reveal the ongoing evolution of informal urbanization in the city. The development of militias, as a result of security problems and the withdrawal of public authorities in these neighborhoods, also affects building construction. Leandro Benmergui and Rafael Soares Gonçalves highlight the dangers of these developments.
At the beginning of 2019, in Rio de Janeiro, two violent storms caused a significant

- From the Field / Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, favela, militias, informal housing, vulnerable housing, informality, precarity, catastrophe, disaster, Latin America, safety

The Leaderless Urban Social Movement as Problem and Solution

Caio Teixeira — 2018-09-25T05:00:00Z

Today, with urban uprisings driven by leaderless social movements, the future of the would-be progressive agenda has been called into question. Inspired by Brazil's “June Journeys”, Caio Teixeira explores how we might situate leaderless social movements and their forward-looking agenda within the context of the leftist political spectrum.
---- Series: Progressive Mayors and Urban Social Movements The literature on urban politics has shown the enduring role of progressive social movements in

- From the Field / public transportation, local government, São Paulo, social movement, transport, state, mass transit, progressive urban politics, Brazil, fares, political power, policymaking, mayors, progressive mayors, horizontality, leaderless social movements

Rio de Janeiro: An (Inequitably) Connected City?

Francesca Pilo' & translated by Oliver Waine — 2018-09-21T05:00:00Z

The tangled webs of electrical wires, a symbol of the favelas, are also the sign of an electricity service that remains profoundly unequal and uncertain in Brazilian cities. Francesca Pilo' considers the varying quality of electricity distribution in Rio de Janeiro, and shows how this network contributes to dynamics of urban fragmentation that go beyond the simple dichotomy between shanty towns and prosperous neighborhoods.
Despite the universal nature of electricity provision, in terms of

- From the Field / inequalities, energy, networks, utilities, urban public service, Global South, socio-spatial inequalities, Latin America, Brazil, favela, Rio de Janeiro, urban technical networks, electricity, social division of space, fragmentation, service provision, distribution, urban services

Marielle Franco and Brazilian Democracy at a Crossroads

Natália Alves & Isabella Gonçalves Miranda & Felipe Magalhães — 2018-06-26T05:00:00Z

Marielle Franco's life and death raised questions about the limits of Brazil's New Republic. It revealed the rising stakes, particularly for women and people of color, following the 2016 coup. In this piece, urban activists Isabella Gonçalves and Natália Alves and geographer Felipe Magalhães place Franco's embodied politics as a direct challenge to the regressive policies and aggressive austerity of the current regime.
We live in times when a culture of violence is a vocal minority of the

- From the Field / social movement, security, violence, corruption, neoliberalism, Latin America, Brazil, LGBTQ+, feminism, activism, Rio de Janeiro, queer, critical racial awareness, austerity, militias, queer theory, state violence, coup

You Can't Kill Marielle

Meg Stalcup & Erika Robb Larkins — 2018-05-29T05:00:00Z

Marielle Franco was part of a new generation of progressive activists in Brazilian politics. She was assassinated point-blank on March 14, 2018 by an elite shooter. In this piece, Meg Stalcup and Erika Robb Larkins examine how Marielle's death is revealing of the issues that she fought for in her life. They also ask how she continues to be present in and beyond the unfolding investigation into who killed her.
Violence marked Brazil's 2018 elections, by many accounts the most polarized in the

- From the Field / social movement, security, progressive urban politics, corruption, Latin America, Brazil, activism, Rio de Janeiro, militias, progressive activism

Understanding São Paulo's Bicycle Wars

Derek Pardue — 2015-12-08T06:00:00Z

In São Paulo, Brazil, bike lanes are a new phenomenon in a city historically dominated by automobiles. In the context of public-sector efforts to increase and diversify urban mobility, they are also at the center of furious political and social debate about who has a right to the city's streets and, by extension, who counts as a citizen.
Every week, a new viral video about São Paulo's city center circulates on social media, depicting conflict in the streets and hateful slurs hurled at

- Debates / public space, São Paulo, transport, bicycles, citizenship, right to the city, Brazil, cycling

A Right to the City in the Global South?

Marianne Morange & Amandine Spire & translated by Oliver Waine — 2015-04-17T04:50:00Z

The idea of the right to the city has been the subject of strongly renewed interest in academic milieux, activist circles and among public stakeholders. This idea, far from the definition established by Henri Lefebvre, is today at the heart of the debate on the construction of more just urban societies. This debate is well under way in the Global North – but what about the Global South?
The idea of the right to the city, formulated almost 50 years ago, is one that is highly mobilised today,

- Essays / social movement, postcolonial, Africa, Global South, Lefebvre, right to the city, Latin America, Brazil, urban citizenship