Rio slums mobilize $5.11 billion every year
A storefront in the favela
A new survey from the Data Favela Institute reveals that 2 million people who live in the favelas of Rio de Janeiro mobilize $5.11 billion every year—19% of the income of all slum residents in the country. Brazil has 12 million people living in favelas, who mobilize $26.78 million yearly.
Rio de Janeiro concentrates 17% of the country's favela dwellers, the study indicates. Renato Meirelles, the founder of the institute, told Agência Brasil that is Rio's favelas were a city, it would be the nation's seventh largest urban center—more populous than capitals like Manaus, Porto Alegre, Curitiba, and Recife.
The study further reports that 29% of the inhabitants of shantytowns in Rio come from other states, whereas, in São Paulo, this figure leaps up to 52%. The document also identifies a stronger feeling of solidarity in the favelas of Rio than in conventional neighborhoods. According to Meirelles, there is an economic ecosystem in the communities through which people help one another considerably more.
The data also show optimism among Brazilians living in the favelas: 80% say their lives have improved, and 85% state that their community has improved last year.
The data also show optimism among Brazilians living in the favelas: 80% say their lives have improved, and 85% state that their community has improved last year. Meirelles warned, however, that one must not regard this improvement in people's lives and income as the end of the problems facing them. “Public services are still precarious in the Brazilian favelas.”
He also highlighted that when people talk of the shantytowns in Rio, they immediately think of the hillsides, when in reality this is only common in the southern part of the city. “Less than 1% of the country's favelas are located on the hillside. This is a piece of information people don't pay attention to,” he noted.
In the communities of Rio, the majority of residents are women (51%), and the population's average age is 36—against the national 29. It proves that the slums in Rio are older than those in the rest of the country. “What we have in Rio is a favela that was established together with the city for a longer time,” said the founder of the Data Favela Institute.
The research also discloses that 78% of people living in the slums of Rio said they would not like to leave the communities where they live, against a mere 21% who said the opposite.
Translated by Fabrício Ferreira
Fonte: Rio slums mobilize $5.11 billion every year
