Retrofitting and Sanitizing the Favela
Although this paper analyzes the process of constructing NEW social settlements, our approach could be adjusted to retrofit the favela. In ecological terms, we embrace and learn from our competition (the “species” in the lowest ecological stratum of urbanism) instead of trying to exterminate it. Governments wish that favelas would simply disappear (refusing even to draw them on city maps), and their residents spontaneously move to the countryside, but powerful global economic forces ensure that this is not going to happen. We, as urbanists concerned with housing the poor, must accept favelas as a social and urban phenomenon, and try to make the best of an existing situation.
It is not always possible or even desirable to accept an existing favela and make it into a better place to live.
First, it is often the case that squatter settlements have grown on polluted or toxic ground, on unstable soil, on steep slopes, or in a flood area. Periodically, their inhabitants are killed by natural disasters, and there is little that can be done to retrofit a settlement on dangerous ground in order to make it safer.
Second, squatter settlements invade natural preserves that are necessary for regenerating oxygen needed for the entire city. These are the “lungs” of an urban population, and they must be preserved from encroachment and destruction.
Third, squatter settlements produce pollution and human waste that damages the rest of the city. This problem cannot be ignored. Even if the government does not wish to legitimize a particular favela, helping it to treat its waste benefits the whole city.
Let us assume for the moment that social problems (which are particularly rampant in a favela) can be tackled independently of problems arising from urban and architectural form. One can easily go into an existing settlement and try to repair it, with the help of its current residents. John F. C. Turner (1976) did exactly that, setting a precedent for several successful interventions in Latin America, especially in Colombia. The only obstacle — and it is a profound one — is the philosophical conviction that the favela’s geometry is out of place in a modern society. Under that mind set, any “repair” turns into annihilation and replacement. We need to truly understand the process of repair and self-healing of urban fabric, uninfluenced by current preconceptions.
Disagreeing with conventional planning beliefs, we accept the geometry of the favela, and point out its main deficiencies: a lack of services, sanitation, and natural features. In most cases the urban fabric is perfectly adapted to the topography and natural features of the landscape (simply because the owner-builders didn’t have access to bulldozers and dynamite). What is usually lacking, however, is space for trees and green. The sad truth is that most trees are cut down and used as building materials. Vegetation competes with people for space. The poverty of the favela often includes poverty in plant life: it is a luxury here because of the extreme living conditions. Even so, many residents will try to maintain a little garden if that’s at all possible.
A process of reinforcement
Our method is highly flexible, and its principles remain valid even if the situation changes. A series of steps, taken a few at a time (and therefore very economical) can repair the favela’s complex urban fabric. More than anything, we advocate a process of REINFORCEMENT, adopting much of the evolved geometry where it appears to work, and intervening to replace pathological structures. Plumbing and sanitary facilities are essential. Sidewalks are most important, and are sorely needed in a favela, which is primarily a pedestrian realm.
Having real sidewalks raises the favela to a more permanent, “higher-class” urban typology. The existing building fronts determine exactly where the sidewalks should be built. Streets in a favela are usually of poor quality, if they are even paved, so electricity, sewerage, and water networks could be introduced under the streets. After many buildings are reinforced, one might finally pave the street.
Taking some straightforward sanitary measures can minimize filth and disease. One does not have to bulldoze a favela to get a healthier neighborhood. Doing that will certainly not raise the income level of its residents, nor improve their social condition. Putting the same people into concrete bunker apartments may look good in a photo, but actually cuts their societal connections, ultimately making their situation worse. We know that when poor people are forcibly moved from a human-scaled neighborhood into high-rise blocks, their social cohesion worsens catastrophically. On the other hand, many social problems are simply not solvable by urban morphology alone.
A favela is usually built of flimsy, impermanent materials. The government can help its residents to gradually rebuild their houses using more permanent materials. We don’t imply here replacing the typology of their house, but replacing say, the unstable roof or the walls (taking this opportunity to insert plumbing and electricity). A house made of cardboard and corrugated tin can be reconstructed in a very similar form using bricks, concrete blocks, and more solid panels provided cheaply by the government. Sometimes, the residents are only waiting until they get a legal deed to the land they live on; then they rebuild their homes using more permanent materials and financed by their accumulated savings. Otherwise, they are reluctant to invest anything more than the barest minimum in the structure.
Some readers will object to our accepting the overcrowding that is usual in a slum, and may even be outraged that we suggest maintaining this high density. Here we need to study high-density upper-income settlements in the same society, to decide how much density can be easily tolerated. It’s not the high density by itself that is objectionable; it is the difficult living conditions that result from such density. It turns out that portions of high-density urban fabric can be maintained when it is made more sanitary. Unfortunately, such suggestions have been planning anathema up until now.
Small-scale urban interventions
In some places, accepting the favela and legalizing its plots has come under sharp criticism from social activists who see this as a facile solution for a government to take. The accusation is that by simply legitimizing an unhealthy slum, the government abnegates its responsibility of building more permanent social housing. In our opinion, the magnitude of the social housing problem is so vast as to be near insoluble. The simple economics put a comprehensive solution out of reach. Our approach proceeds with one step at a time, retrofitting those portions of favelas that can be made healthy, while at the same time building new housing following an organic paradigm. If these steps succeed, then they can be repeated indefinitely, progressing towards a long-term amelioration.
Banks, governments, and building companies are captivated by economies of scale, and are less sensitive to economies of place and of differentiation needed to repair a neighborhood. Wielding a blunt and relatively primitive economic instrument, they would prefer to wipe out the neighborhood and build it all over again. It is much less trouble, and less costly in crude monetary terms, to do this. But of course, the unsustainability of this lopsided economic model (and its terrible cost to society) is becoming painfully evident.
Governments are reluctant to bother with small-scale urban interventions, but instead sponsor only large-scale ones since it saves them accounting costs (Salingaros, 2005: Chapter 3). And yet, living urban fabric has to be maintained by an enormous number of small-scale interventions, which is an essential part of the process of organic repair. Institutions such as banks (with an exception noted earlier, micro-financing by the Grameen Bank) are generally unwilling to bother with small loans meant for small-scale building in poor neighborhoods.
All banks, however, operate also on a small scale administering small accounts and loans. They possess the technical ability to service small loans, doing it routinely with credit cards, car loans, and personal lines of credit. Technology has evolved in the direction of differentiation and customization, aided in part by revolutions in software technology. Those innovations have yet to be applied in the realm of social housing, which still tends to follow the inflexible old institutional formats.
On a more positive note, many groups have discovered small-scale solutions of tremendous value. For example, in recent years concepts such as micro-financing, micro energy generation, mother centers, technology centers, urban farming, composting toilets, and other ideas have been successfully implemented. These small-scale processes can eventually make a hugely positive difference to both favelas and social housing. They are all in keeping with our insistence on the small scale as a mechanism for self-help in such communities, and also in establishing a sense of community in a dysfunctional population (Habitatjam, 2006). These small-scale solutions, representing resource independence, offer a healthy alternative to the forces trying to impose central control.