ABSTRACT
With the country’s recent unprecedented economic expansion and the 2014 World Cup and 2016 Summer Olympics on the horizon, city governments throughout Brazil are investing billions of dollars in slum-upgrading programs that seek to redesign and integrate favelas—informal urban settlements characterized by self-built houses, irregular land tenure, and a long history of state neglect. In addition to improving infrastructure and rehabilitating houses, urban planning departments are constructing thousands of low-rise public housing buildings within favelas (see Figure 7.1)—an innovative housing practice that was first developed and implemented in Belo Horizonte, Brazil’s sixth largest city.
