Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Rio de Janeiro, on the Atlantic coast of southeastern Brazil, is one of Latin America's megacities. It is the second largest urban agglomeration in Brazil after metropolitan São Paulo. The municipality of Rio de Janeiro, measuring 1,182 square kilometers (km2) is the state capital of Rio de Janeiro State (43,696 km2). The estimated municipal population in 2008 was about 7.8 million inhabitants in a state of about 15 million people. About 11.8 million people occupy an area of 5,645 km2 in the 20 municipalities of the Rio de Janeiro metropolitan region. As a megacity in one of the world's largest emerging economies, Rio faces tremendous challenges in forging a path toward achieving sustainable development.

Estácio de Sá founded São Sebastião do Rio de Janeiro for the Portuguese crown in 1565, ending a short-lived occupation by French forces. The administrative capital city of the Portuguese colony of Brazil was transferred from Salvador, Bahia, to Rio de Janeiro in 1763. The transit of enslaved Africans through the port of Rio continued through much of the 19th century. In the 19th century, a series of changes spurred economic modernization and industrialization in Brazil. The seat of the Portuguese empire was transferred from Lisbon to Rio de Janeiro in 1808. Brazil achieved independence from Portugal and established a monarchy in 1822. Brazil's coffee cycle started in the 1830s, leading to new waves of immigrants and giving rise to new agrarian and mercantile elites. Slavery was abolished in Brazil in 1888, and the monarchy ended in 1889 when the Federalist Revolution, backed by the coffee oligarchy, deposed emperor Dom Pedro II.

The deep social and economic inequalities evident in urban Brazil today are legacies of historical injustices. Rio's outer suburbs house the majority of its low-income population. Employment opportunities remain concentrated in the city's central areas. The number of favelas (shantytowns) in Rio increased from 26 in 1920, to 147 in 1960, to about 600 in the late 1990s. By 2000, there were more than a million favela dwellers in the city. The growth of favelas is part of broader processes of urban space production. Many affluent Brazilians—who previously self-segregated into exclusionary spaces, such as luxury residential high-rise buildings and gated communities within the country's largest cities—are now investing in and moving to medium-sized Brazilian cities.

Rio's favelas are notoriously associated with extreme poverty, illegal drug trafficking, and related violent crime. However, in many favela communities, residents have mobilized to create civil society organizations offering political empowerment, education, health services, income generation, social entrepreneurship, creative self-expression, and improved environmental quality.

[Page 385]Rio de Janeiro State is situated entirely within the biologically diverse Atlantic Forest region. Some of Brazil's earliest protected areas were established in Rio. Endorsement of sustainable urban development in Rio emerged in the early 1990s. In 1992 Rio hosted the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development and the Global Forum. Rio is preparing to host the final of the 2014 FIFA World Cup and the 2016 Olympic and Paralympic Games, which puts pressure on the city to upgrade facilities, infrastructure, and services.

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