Neoliberalization and mega-events: The transition of Rio de Janeiro’s hybrid urban order

ABSTRACT

The current developments in Rio de Janeiro in the wake of the 2014 International Federation of Association Football (FIFA) World Cup and the 2016 Summer Olympic Games have accelerated the transition from a hybrid urban order to a new urban order of intensified neoliberalization and commodification. This transition is a complex and contradictory process that entails both rollback and rollout features of neoliberalism, as well as a permanent restructuring of sociospatial relations and political arrangements. By discussing the ongoing policies and politics of urban restructuring, we examine the creative destruction of urban structures, institutional arrangements, and regulations of urban space with the transformation of 3 sites in Rio de Janeiro—Barra da Tijuca, the port district, and the South Zone. The process of variegated neoliberalization generates new modes of production and reproduction, which threaten the principles of democratic governance and universalization of rights to the city.

Acknowledgment

The authors are grateful for the careful reading by Xuefei Ren, whose comments and suggestions have helped us significantly improve the final version of this article. We also thank the team of researchers who participated in the project “Metropolization and Mega-events: The Impact of the World Cup and the Olympics in Brazilian Metropolises,” based on which the analysis of this article is developed.

Notes

1. In this article, we use neoliberalism and neoliberalization interchangeably, while acknowledging the different treatment of the two terms in the literature.

2. Frontier here refers to the “boundary that displaces, in its own way, the capitalist mode of production,” expressing “thus, a fundamental contradiction, according to which capitalist accumulation, to move, needs non-capitalist formations around it” (Courlet, 1996, pp. 12–13).

^3. The literature on migration has demonstrated the role of social networks in the migrants’ adaptation process. Singer (1975, p. 55) pointed out the importance of considering this fact by stating that “the adaptation of newly arrived migrants to the social environment often occurs through mutual aid mechanisms and solidarity of older migrants.”

^4. Mayor Cesar Maia served three terms (1993–1996, 2001–2004, and 2005–2008). Luiz Paulo Conde served as mayor between 1997 and 2000.

^5. Examples include major infrastructural investment under the Growth Acceleration Program (PAC), investment in social housing promoted by the Minha Casa Minha Vida (My House, My Life Program) program, in addition to the significant expansion of activities of the state oil company Petrobras.

6. As Guimarães (2015) recorded, in 1981 the four major owners of almost the entire landed property of Barra da Tijuca were Pasquale Mauro, Carlos Fernando de Carvalho (owner of the construction company Carvalho Hosken), Tjong Hiong Oei (owner of the company ESTA SA), and Múcio Athayde (owner of Grupo Desenvolvimento). Carlos Carvalho was called by Veja magazine the richest man in Brazil (“Os supermilionários,” 1981). According to the report, this was the world’s largest concentration of urban land (12 million square meters) belonging to a single owner.

7. The winning consortium of the tender was composed of three construction companies: OAS LTDA, Norberto Odebrecht Brasil S.A., and Carioca Christiani-Nielsen Engenharia S.A.

8. Between 2009 and 2015, 120 social housing units were built in Cantagalo and Pavão-Pavãozinho as part of the Growth Acceleration Program, promoted by the state government of Rio de Janeiro. One hundred seventeen social housing units were built in Babilônia by the City of Rio de Janeiro as part of the Morar Carioca Verde program. And in Santa Marta, 64 social housing units are to be built by the state of Rio de Janeiro.

9. Favela Babilônia was the setting of a Brazilian soap opera aired by the country’s largest television network, Rede Globo, in 2015.

10. It is exemplary for three reasons. First, on the one hand, there is a typical process of accumulation by dispossession based on appropriation and reinterpretation of the collective cultural capital as a mark of the social distinction of the commodified spaces by the logic of the Income Art (Harvey, 2005). Secondly, for expressing the action of the transfer and adaptation mechanisms of the neoliberalization policy mentioned in the literature (De Soto, 2000). Finally, it is an experiment in constructing the social consent necessary to consolidate the progress of neoliberalization expressed by practices of symbolic violence on the former collective imaginary of the city, strongly established in the 1980s around favelas as spaces to be integrated via the extension of citizenship.

^11. Information on real estate prices in the Babilônia favela is unavailable.

12. The State of Rio de Janeiro Promotion Agency is a semipublic corporation created by Federal Decree No. 32376 on December 12, 2002 (Governo do Estado do Rio de Janeiro, 2002). It is affiliated with the Rio de Janeiro State Department of Economic Development, Energy, Industry and Services with the aim of stimulating economic development.

13. CUFA is a nongovernmental organization created over 20 years ago, by youth from favelas in Rio de Janeiro. CUFA promotes various activities in favelas, such as education, leisure, sports, culture and citizenship, literature, and other social projects. One of its founding members is the rapper MV Bill, who has received several awards for his participation in the hip hop movement. In 2015, CUFA opened an office in New York (Fundação Doimo, 2015).

14. Highlights among these Keynesian policies include the Bolsa Família program, which ensures a minimum income for low-income families; the PAC, aimed to bolster urban infrastructure; and the Minha Casa Minha Vida program, focused on new housing construction.

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Notes on contributors

Luiz Cesar de Queiroz Ribeiro

Luiz Cesar de Queiroz Ribeiro is a Professor at the Institute of Urban and Regional Planning at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro. He has degrees in public administration, sociology, and urban planning. He is the coordinator of the National Science and Technology Institute’s Observatory of the Metropolis and the editor of Cadernos Metropoles and E-metropolis. He has a researcher scholarship from National Council of Science and Technology.

Orlando Alves dos Santos Junior

Orlando Alves dos Santos Junior is a Professor at the Institute of Urban and Regional Planning at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro. He has degrees in sociology and urban and regional planning. He is a researcher at the National Science and Technology Institute’s Observatory of the Metropolis. He has coordinated research about the social impacts of the 2014 World Cup and the 2016 Olympics in Brazilian cities. He has published many articles and books focusing on urban planning, social mouvements, and urban sociology.