Speaker
Description
This article explores the recent transformations in housing production in Heliópolis, one of the largest favelas in the city of São Paulo, Brazil. This territory consolidated itself through a process of self-construction and the struggle for housing, a dynamic that, while still present in the area, has increasingly given way to an intensive housing production of vertical buildings, identified here as "predinhos". Among the characteristics that differentiate these constructions from the previous ones, we highlight: (i) standardized aesthetics, varying between 5 and 8 floors; (ii) they are built from zero - in contrast to the incremental logic of self-construction - and most of the time are the result of demolishing old housing, using sophisticated equipment and machinery; (iii) they have mixed use, with the ground floor dedicated to commerce or services and the upper floors featuring small apartments; and (iv) they are market-oriented, primarily for sale - and not for renting the housing units - through informal contracts and alternative financing options that allow people to acquire their "own apartment," thus constituting a constantly growing real estate market.
These dynamics isn't result from a lack of the State; on the contrary, urban and housing policies and choices that fail to responds the real demand for housing and provoke more evictions than solutions, have opened space and contributed to the formation of illegal land and housing markets. Although informal and illegal housing markets have always existed in this territory, initially through land grabbers (grileiros) and more recently through real estate companies and large local landowners, we consider the "predinhos" to be something distinct from previous productions. This represents an intensive and unprecedented real estate local market.
Between 2023 and 2024, we mapped more than 100 buildings, either completed or under construction, in Heliópolis. This intensive production was only made possible due to the increased circulation of wealth in peripheral areas, with resources from both legal and illegal sources, which finance the purchase of homes, their demolitions, and the construction of new developments. At the same time, this dynamic is directly linked to the pacification process imposed by the major criminal faction in São Paulo, known as the Primeiro Comando da Capital (PCC), which, through arbitration and violent methods, established a discipline that regulates a thriving business environment — including real estate — through its governance and ability to mobilize financial and political resources, always in collaboration with state institutions and agents.
Although linked to the illegal market, the "predinhos" are seen by a significant portion of the population as an alternative, as they responds the demand of people who cannot access housing policies like Minha Casa Minha Vida, providing a financially accessible option to buy their own apartment. While, in the 1980s, popular organization around the fight for housing — although insufficient to end the cycle of violence — imposed limits and prevented the continuation of land grabbing, today the popular mobilization against the "predinhos" is more complex. Because, in the short term, this type of market satisfies the dream of many to achieve homeownership.
| Keywords | favela; housing; Brazil; illegal market; real state |
|---|---|
| Best Congress Paper Award | Yes |
