The city of Rio de Janeiro is undergoing a period of furious urban transformation in the run up to the 2014 Football World Cup and 2016 Olympic Games. While Brazil’s role as host country will bring undeniable benefits to Rio, including the generation of employment, foreign investment and hugely increased tourism revenues during and after the games, it may turn out to be something of a poisoned chalice for residents of Rio’s favelas, or shantytown, communities.

Rio is a city characterised by close geographical proximity between communities of great wealth and others of extreme poverty. Due in part to the attempts of previous governments to prevent the expansion of favelas by denying them access to basic public services such as water, electricity and sanitation, they have historically been characterised by atrocious living conditions and social isolation from the more affluent areas of the city, or ‘asfalto’. This marginalisation of Rio’s favelas has, in parts, engendered an economic and social structure centred around drug dealing and warring criminal gangs to a degree that rendered many of the communities inaccessible to residents of the rest of Rio. While this stereotype of violence and poverty arguably ignores the entrepreneurialism and strong sense of community present in some of the city’s favelas, the national and municipal government are keen to rid the city of what many in the international community perceive to be dangerous centres of criminality.

The mayor of Rio, Eduardo Paes, has thus proclaimed the objective of a number of newly created urban regeneration programmes to be the urbanisation of Rio by the year 2020. Despite the superficially admirable aim of allocating a budget of R$8,000,000,000 (just under £3,000,000,000) to provide facilities such as street lighting, drainage and sports facilities, as well as means of addressing local issues of health, security and education, the programmes have already encountered difficulties. There has been dispute not only over the total number of favelas within Rio, but also over defining the criteria that a favela should meet in order to be considered ‘urbanised’. The government definition focuses principally on the provision of facilities and public services, yet to address only problems of infrastructure is to neglect the need for a radical assertion of the state’s presence and the rule of law within communities that have lived for years under gang control – it has been claimed that 44 of the newly ‘urbanised’ communities are still under the control of armed drug traffickers.

Although support for government occupations of favelas in order to overthrow violent drug gangs has largely been positively received, other aspects of the programmes have met greater resistance. The new housing provided by the government scheme would necessitate more formal arrangements of property ownership and lease, an issue that is of increasing concern to local residents as land prices rise in the run up to 2014. Where before favelas were dynamic and expanding entities, residents must now become accustomed to more permanent living arrangements. The notion of a constant, benevolent police presence in communities from which the state has succeeded in expelling drug gangs is also one that will be alien to many who have witnessed years of violent confrontation between police forces and armed drug traffickers within the favelas.

Whilst these ideological reservations may, in time, be overcome by the government, it is perhaps more worrying that the U.N and Amnesty International have expressed concern over the forced eviction of favela dwellers from their communities. A 2011 report by the United Nations criticised the government’s failure to provide adequate time for families to find alternative residencies, or to offer sufficient compensation to those being displaced. Those living in favelas want development of pre-existing settlements in order to reduce crime and improve living conditions, but believe that the authorities want to eradicate their homes in a bid to promote Rio’s international image as a developed and safe city. Furthermore, in a government already blighted by corruption scandals, there have been complaints that the land reclaimed by the government is being sold on to private investors with an interest in its development potential. The allegation that favela dwellers are being exploited in order to raise funds for the Olympic Games has the potential to undermine the opportunity for positive change undoubtedly provided by the pacification and modernisation of the communities.

If Rio’s favelas are truly to benefit from the international attention and business interest the city will receive in the next 5 years, financial investment alone is not enough. The government has the opportunity to redress the social imbalance that has characterised the city for so long, but it is only through continuous social investment beyond the Olympic games that this might be brought about.