The Rise of the Favela

Author's photo

The Latin American Monitor (Christian Science Monitor) has an interesting post this week about Brazil's rising "favela consumer class." RioGringa, the author, notes that around 65 percent of favela (a term for urban Brazilian slums) residents are now considered middle class. This "C" class, in Brazilian parlance, constitutes about 12 million people--about the size of Illinois or Pennsylvania, the 5th and 6th most populous states in the U.S.--and earn around $28 billion a year, which the author compares to the entire GDP of Bolivia.


Riding a tide of strong national growth and aggressive social development policy under the PT (Worker's Party), favela residents have begun to replace the image of gang-ruled no man's lands with that of a developing, even thriving heart of a Brazilian renaissance. RioGringa points to the increasing access to goods, especially durable goods, for favela residents as an indicator of a growing middle class. Over half of residents now have washing machines and 40 percent have computers. Much of this urban boom comes as a result of easier access to credit, underwritten by government programs like the Growth Acceleration Program or Bolsa Familia.

 

 

This boom in hardware and appliances is stretching an already tenuous infrastructure in many favelas. Touring several favelas in 2009, I remember being overwhelmed by the sketchy mass of cables and wires, jerry-rigged by handy residents to connect their new TVs and washers to the grid (see image). The challenge will be formalizing the tenuous (and sometimes illegal) connections between favela residents and the economy and infrastructure; this means improving access to sewage and utilities, land tenure, and public services like education, health care, and security.