Housing
Is a Favela Still a Favela Once It Starts Gentrifying?
Rents are going up in Rio's informal housing communities. What, if anything, should the city do about it?
Rio de Janeiro's shanty towns, its favelas, long stricken by poverty and violence, have a new boogeyman: Gentrification.
First, only academics were worried about whether gentrification might really be happening in the favelas. Those fears have since migrated from anxious blog entries to coverage in major newspapers. The international press has now latched on, reporting on the hip restaurants edging into territory more commonly thought of as a drug gang battleground.