City of Rio spends millions to save homes of wealthy while removing poor communities in other parts of city

March 19, 2012

The city of Rio de Janeiro spends R$ 377 million (215 million USD) in order for resident’s of a wealthy area of Ipanema to remain where they live while a major infrastructure project is completed around, and under them. At the same time, and hypocritically, the City is removing at will, and arbitrarily, dozens of poor communities in similar, or less severe, situations.

Here are excerpts from an article in odia about the issue:

“The construction of the Metro line number 4 (which will connect the neighborhoods of Jardim Oceânico, in Barra da Tijuca, to Estação General Osório) could temporarily displace 290 families in Ipanema.Three apartment buildings in the area are in the path of the trains. The state has decided not to enter into a legal dispute with these residents and will cost $ 377 million to state coffers. The new route will require doubling the size of the nearby train station, General Osorio …”

“… The ‘jeitinho’ in Ipanema will cost almost $ 80 million less if the city evicted up three thousand residents in nine districts in the way of the corridor for the Transcarioca (Bar-Galleon) bus line. If the State had chosen to evict the residents of Ipanema, there would be no need to extend the station…”