Annotated Bibliography

DJ Olson 2/23/2020

Problem Statement:

Inequality is experienced in every country in the world, however, what determines how much it affects populations is it severity. Rio De Janeiro is the capital of Brazil and has a population of over 6 million. It has an area of just under 500 square miles, but due to a number geographic constraints, much of the population is clustered along the coastline. One defining factor of Rio is its severe and dividing inequality. Many regions within the city are in extremely close proximity to each other, but, it is not uncommon for two people living in adjacent neighborhoods to have completely different qualities of life. Inequality within Rio stems from a number of different contributing factors but most can be traced back to an extreme disparity in the socioeconomic statuses of the city’s residents. Rio is so diverse economically because of migration patterns within Rio that affected how the city developed, and this now constrain certain regions from organizing and developing at the same rate as others. This has led to segregation within the city between wealthy and poor neighborhoods causing socioeconomic differences. There are large gaps in healthcare, education, access to resources, and living conditions for residents in different regions. In order to start fixing some of these issues the primary goals should be breaking down the barriers that divide different communities and starting to integrate disadvantaged region’s populations into the more urbanized and developed parts of the city.

Annotations:

1) Skidmore, Thomas. “Brazil: Five Centuries of Change.” Brazil Five Centuries of Change, Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies, Brown University, 2010. From: library.brown.edu/create/fivecenturiesofchange/chapters/chapter-9/favelas-in-rio-de-janeiro-past-and-present/.

Brazil: Five Centuries of Change:

This article talks about the Favelas, a form of public housing very popular in Rio de Janeiro that has garnered much attention from politicians in Rio in recent years. Originally the favelas started to develop in the 1940s when there was a shortage of land in Rio so poorer people began to build makeshift houses and communal living areas vertically along the many hillsides of Rio. However, as Rio continued to develop into the 70s this area became highly valuable for real estate development and commercial use. Politicians were under pressure to clear out the favelas due to the anti-urbanization and inefficient land use effects they had, but efforts failed because they had become such a big part of Rio, and so much of Rio’s lower class lived in them. In fact, in 1988, Brazil’s constitution established five years as the term for “adverse possession,” the process of acquiring ownership through use rather than through payment. Thus, many favela residents who had been living in Rio’s favelas for generations were no longer at risk for eviction. But this did not end all troubles as starting in the 1980s all the way up to present day, the favelas have been the hub of the lucrative drug trade that plagues Rio and Brazil.

Amartya Sen would contend that this article is a good example of human development because of the agency it shows people gaining from being able to acquire property while being impoverished. I think he would agree that the favelas are never going to be eradicated so rather than trying to rid Rio of them, officials should try to integrate them. 22% of the city’s residents live in favelas so they are clearly here to stay. This article is concerned with the land use, and urbanization aspects of human development, with some mentions of Infrastructure and social service when looking into the drug problems and policing the favelas. The sustainable development goals this article addresses are number 8: promote sustained, inclusive and sustainable economic growth, full and productive employment and decent work for all, and number 10: reduce inequality within and among countries. This article was more analytical than an actual study and no geospatial datasets were produced. That is why this is the first article because it includes more background information, and the later articles have the data. However, the author did use population density sampling within Rio to compare the economic standing and crimes rates of the favelas to the rest of Rio. The author then used this to explore how migration patterns within Rio to explain how the city urbanized in such a unique way. Finally, after finishing the analysis, the author ended by claiming the best way to deal with the favelas is to desegregate them and work to effectively integrate them into the city and expand the economic opportunities for residents. Such a large population of the city’s poor residents living in such a different environment than the rest of the city has developed a divide within a city that would benefit most from being one cohesive community.

2) Moon, Joony. “ As Rio Olympics Kick Off, SPI Data Shows Uneven Social Progress in Brazil.” Skoll. Skoll Foundation, August 5, 2016. From: http://skoll.org/2016/08/05/as-rio-olympics-kick-off-spi-data-shows-uneven-social-progress-in-brazil/.

This article was written during the 2016 Summer Olympics which Rio hosted. The article looks at all of Brazil, and then specifically focuses on Rio’s social progress index (SPI). SPI assesses the social and environmental performance of different regions. The way a rank is given, is many different categories ranging from “access to piped water” to “personal freedom and choice” are given a score from 1 to 100. Each of these categories falls under 1 of the 3 larger umbrellas categories of: basic human needs, foundations of wellbeing, and opportunity. Once all the subcategories have been placed within the larger 3, each of the umbrella categories also receives a score. Then, these 3 scores are averaged into a final SPI for a country. Brazil received a score of 71.7 ranking the country 46 out of the 133 countries with known SPIs. What makes this study incredibly unique is that it was conducted both for Brazil and Rio. SPIs are something usually assessed for an entire country, not an individual city. However, in May 2016, the Brazil Social Progress Network launched its first city-level index for Rio. In doing so, Rio became only the second city in the world, after Bogota, Colombia, to create a SPI. Rio’s SPI found that its regions struggle most with the Access to Higher Education and Sustainability of Ecosystems components. This can be attributed in large part to low rates of people who finish higher education, especially among the non-white population, and low rates of waste recycling. Another incredibly interesting finding was that inequality is extremely high between different regions within the city. Two regions had SPI scores higher than 85, but six scored below 45. Furthermore some regions with very similar per capita income showed very different SPI scores. This is more evidence that economic position is only one of the components of social progress, and Rio needs to work more to break down the barriers that divide different regions of the city rather than simply trying to raise average wages.

Amartya Sen would look at this study and agree that such a range of SPI scores within a specific city is a sign of inequality, likely caused by segregation within a community. Like the previous article, this article also focuses on the 10th human development goal of reducing inequality, which can be done using socioeconomic analysis. Socioeconomic analysis is the perfect dimension of human development to use when trying to identify inequality. The author was able to perform this socioeconomic analysis by using geospatial data to divide Rio into regions based on populations and different social communities. In doing so, SPIs for regions within Rio accurately reflected the region’s social and economic development statuses and regions were able to be compared. In summary, the author helped identify what Rio should focus on in order to reduce inequality within the city through categorization. Breaking Rio down into regions and providing each region with a SPI score made it very easy to identify which categories within SPI were lacking in regions with low scores, and thus, helped these problems get recognized and addressed.

3) Bortz, Martin. “Health Inequalities and Their Political Implications in Rio De Janeiro.” RioOnWatch, July 29, 2015. From: https://www.rioonwatch.org/?p=20153.

Health Inequalities and their Political Implications in Rio de Janeiro:

This study and subsequent article was conducted and written in 2015 to understand and address health inequalities within Rio. The author used geospatial data to create an Urban Health Index (UHI) for different neighborhoods in Rio to display disparity in healthcare between neighborhoods only a couple of miles apart. The UHI was created for the years from 2002 to 2010. “The index incorporates eight indicators using mortality data: diabetes, ischaemic heart disease, breast/cervical cancer, tuberculosis, HIV, homicides, traffic accidents and infant mortality. Findings revealed that, overall, 2010 saw lower inequalities and higher index values than 2002.” Although the maps that were created of the city showed improvement from 2002 to 2010 (neighborhoods were color coded, red being the worst and green being the best), there still exists a large margin of health inequality within the city. In 2010, low index values were seen in northern and central neighborhoods. Socioeconomic status (the main subject of the previous article) was actually a great indicator in this study. Neighborhood’s average apartment’s square-meter price and their distance from the city center showed high correlation with UHI. Additionally, neighborhoods with a large percentage of poor, black residents had the worst UHI values. This reflects the history or Rio, because for hundreds of years spatial and social marginalization has been prevalent within Rio, with poor, black residents being forced to the outskirts of the city, living in run down communities like the favelas. Health is a product of various underlying Social Determinants of Health. As in the case of Rio, bad health is associated with disadvantaged living conditions. Thus, Urban space is a Social Determinant of Health because it is predetermined and unfairly restricting for individuals in a community.

The author of this article conducted created a UHI for Rio with the intention of helping reduce health inequalities within the city. One important question the author answered was how this can be done. It is not that Rio lacks access to modern medicine and simply cannot apply and administer healthcare. Rather, Rio lacks the infrastructure to distribute healthcare equally. There is no reason that there should be such large gaps within an individual city that is not geographically that large. In order to increase public health, Rio needs to focus on desegregation and increasing socioeconomic equality. Amartya Sen concluded that public health is one of the most important aspects of human development. However, what this article tells us specifically about Rio is that in order to achieve public health, there are other aspects of human development that must first be reached.

4) Catalytic Communities. “Rio Favela Facts.” CatComm. Accessed February 24, 2020. From: https://catcomm.org/favela-facts/.

5) Alvarado, Paula. “The Urbanization of Rio De Janeiro’s Slums, a Model for Sustainable Development.” TreeHugger. Treehugger, October 11, 2018. From: https://www.treehugger.com/urban-design/the-urbanization-of-rio-de-janeiro-s-slums-a-model-for-sustainable-development.html.

The Urbanization of Rio de Janeiro’s Slums, a Model for Sustainable Development:

This annotation includes two sources, the first is data used to generate maps of the favelas and Rio which show the proximity of different regions within Rio to different public amenities. This includes the proximity and amount of schools, health clinics, and even things like sports facilities and parks. The second is an analytical article about the favelas and the different strategies that are being implemented to urbanize and develop these disadvantaged regions. These two sources work well together because one uses data to show the differences between certain regions and the other explains the effects these differences cause, and outlines plans to close the inequality gap between regions within Rio. The second source talks a lot about an initiative called Morar Carioca, portuguese for Rio de Janeiro Living. The idea of it is to turn all favelas into neighborhoods by 2020. This article was published in 2016 and the favelas are not even close to being turned into neighborhoods today, which shows the lack of efficiency of Rio’s public officials. However, the program itself is founded on solid ideas. It is funded by City Hall, the Federal Government and the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), and the program “combines interventions to provide public services and to improve people’s homes, along with the construction of new housing and community infrastructure.” This connects back to the first source because of the correlation it showed between well off communities and the prevalence of public amenities within the region. It seems that regions with access to more public services have populations with better qualities of life, and in turn, residents with better socioeconomic statuses. The program also includes goals beyond simply increasing the amount of amenities. There are goals to retrofit the favelas to make them more environmentally sustainable as well as create a plastic recycling plant which will create power for lighting within the favelas. Finally, one of the most important parts of the program is integrating the favela’s economy into the larger economy of Rio. The program plans to train residents of the favelas to become tour guides and work other jobs in the tourism industry so which will not only increase job opportunities, but allow for other residents of Rio to interact with the favelas, and hopefully allow for favela residents to be proud of their history.

Amartya Sen would likely agree that this program is a good plan to help the favelas because it goes beyond simply throwing money at an issue. While Rio is allocating money to help the favelas have better public services, the program also helps favela residents become self sufficient, which Sen would agree is a key part of development. The data methods used show how patterns and correlations can almost always be found when you have regions with major inequality, and it is hardly ever random. The 10th sustainable development goal is to reduce inequality within and among countries. Using big data to find the causes of inequalities within regions of countries is essential when looking to fix them. Finally, the most important thing these two sources display is the application of data. The first source identifies an issue and its potential causes, and the second outlines a plan to fix the issue using strategies developed from the data.

6) FGV. “Study Reveals Rising Poverty and Inequality in Brazil over the Last Four Years.” Portal FGV, September 10, 2018. From: https://portal.fgv.br/en/news/study-reveals-rising-poverty-and-inequality-brazil-over-last-four-years.

Study reveals rising poverty and inequality in Brazil over last four years:

This article talks about a study that used housing survey sample data that showed poverty levels within Brazil increasing. It also mentioned the future potential use of different forms of microdata to better predict social and economic trends within communities. The study showed that Brazil has 23.3 million citizens that are living below the poverty line (11.3% of the country’s population), and a 33% increase was shown over the past 4 years. The new Continuous Brazilian Household Sample Survey (Continuous PNAD), showed that the average per capita income among employed workers was also severely dropping, indicating some sort of economic falter within the country. The Continuous PNAD uses big data to “monitor the quarterly fluctuations and the short, medium and long-term evolution of the labor force and other information necessary for the study of the country’s socioeconomic development.” This survey is incredibly important in a country such as Brazil and in cities like Rio because it can help show whether efforts to improve socioeconomic status are working. While other articles talked about ways to help both Rio and Brazil develop, this article talks about the equally important aspect of making sure the efforts implemented are doing what they are designed to do. Just because data indicates that Rio has certain issues causing inequality that can be addressed in certain ways, doesn’t necessarily mean simply doing this is going to fix the issues. Problems with human development are complex and sometimes unforeseen errors and setbacks can occur. This is why it is important that strategies are monitored and progress or lack thereof is noted.