FAVELA-BAIRRO PROGRAM (The Slum-to-Neighborhood Program)
The Municipality of the City of Rio de Janeiro designed the Favela-Bairro Program as a tool to promote urban and social integration of cariocas (people who live in Rio) and reverse the process of urban decline that generally follows the growth of spontaneous low-income settlements in metropolitan areas of Third World countries.

In the case of Rio de Janeiro – a city with 5.5 million persons – approximately one million cariocas live in favelas and another five hundred thousand in irregular and clandestine land subdivisions. In other words, at least 25 percent of the total population lives in inadequate environmental and housing conditions, either in terms of the house itself or, to a greater or lesser degree, the insufficiency of infrastructure or public facilities and services that are the benchmarks of contemporary urban living.

According to the Housing Secretary (Secretário Municipal de Habitação), Sérgio Magalhães, the key change in the municipal government's programs during the 1990s is the replacement of the idea of dealing only with the deficit of adequate housing by a policy that focuses on "producing the city" through addressing the urban deficit. In other words, the city has substituted the construction of isolated housing units with programs to develop the organization of an urban structure. This structure is built where the population currently excluded from public services lives, thus incorporating these persons into the functional and vital dynamics of the "formal" city.

The Favela-Bairro Program is part of the housing policy of Rio de Janeiro, adopted in 1993. The program's key objective is to provide urban improvements, primarily urban infrastructure, and to create and provide access to urban facilities that will provide social benefits that, in turn, integrate a favela into the urban fabric and transform it into a neighborhood.

To complement the objectives of the Favela-Bairro Program, the City has also established land ownership and income generation programs.

With the goal of serving 60 favelas and 8 irregular land subdivisions in four years, the Program for the Improvement of Low-Income Settlements (PROAP-RIO, Programa de Urbanização de Assentamentos Populares) was created, with co-financing from the Interamerican Development Bank (IDB). The investment amounts to US$ 300 million, of which 40 percent came from the City of Rio and 60 percent from the IDB. These funds are to assist favelas and irregular land developments and to create programs for sanitary and environmental education and the strengthening of local institutions. The program serves a population of 250,000 persons in a total of 60 favelas.

To integrate the favela into the urban fabric of the formal city, the program includes as key actions:

1. Completing or constructing key urban infrastructure.
   
2. Providing environmental changes that make the favela look like as a "normal" neighborhood.
   
3. Introducing visual symbols of the formal city as a sign of identification as a neighborhood: paved streets, plazas, urban furniture and public services.
   
4. Consolidating the insertion of the favelas into the planning process of the city.
   
5. Implementing activities of a social nature, such as setting up daycare centers for children, income generation projects, training programs, and sports, cultural and leisure activities.
   
6. Promoting the legalization of land subdivision and providing individual land titles.

In 1994 the Housing Secretariat organized, in cooperation with the Brazilian Institute of Architects (IAB, Instituto Brasileiro de Arquitetos), a design competition for a methodology to develop improvements in 18 favelas of medium size (between 500 and 2,500 dwellings). An important innovation was the organization of 15 teams led by architects who participated in the competition presenting new ideas and methodological approaches. The competition included firms of young architects as well as those of older and prestigious architects, who for the first time took on designing for the poorest members of Rio's population. This initiative promoted a new relationship between technical expertise and the poorest areas of Rio de Janeiro, allowing the use of knowledge to introduce improvements in the quality of life of these people.

Another important project factor is that the architectural and urban transformations are followed by social interventions that remain in the favela after the construction phase is completed. The first element is a Center for Urban and Social Assessment (POUSO, Posto de Orientação Urbanística e Social), where the municipal government is represented by architects and a social workers, and which relies on the collaboration of community agents who assist the residents in developing their plans for the use of public and private space. The second element is the creation of training centers for artisans and skilled labor, where personal computer stations provide network-assisted learning for youth and adults. All of these programs focus on generating new sources of income for the people in the favela. The third element supports the establishment of cooperatives and shops to organize the community's commerce. With the legalization of land titles and the availability of infrastructure, the favela now has public services that are identified with the "formal" city, including education, health care, sports, sewers, garbage collection, telephones, mail, water, and gas.