University College London The Bartlett Faculty of the Built Environment Development Planning Unit Slum upgrading role for housing policy and governance [trans]formation[s] From Favela-Bairro to Morar Carioca, investigating the case of Rio de Janeiro in Brazil Hector Becerril Miranda A thesis submitted to the University College London for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Development Planning London, August 2014 1 I, Hector Becerril Miranda confirm that the work presented in this thesis is my own. Where information has been derived from other sources, I confirm that this has been indicated in the thesis. 2 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS How much better it is to acquire wisdom than gold; to acquire understanding is more desirable than silver. Proverbs 16:16 I am most grateful to Jorge Fiori for his insightful supervision, constant support and commitment. Our collaboration broadened my horizons and expanded my understanding. Thanks Jorge for giving me the freedom to experiment and guiding me in the moments of uncertainty. Also special thanks to Yves Cabannes, my secondary supervisor, for his encouragement and valuable comments. This thesis would not have been possible without the financial support of CONACyT (Consejo Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnología - México) and the UCL and the Bartlett Development Planning Unit conference funds, as well as the Urban Knowledge Network Asia (UKNA) fellowship funded by a grant awarded by the Marie Curie Actions 'International Research Staff Exchange Scheme' (IRSES) which is part of the European Union's Seventh Framework Programme. The UKNA fellowship enabled me to conduct a comparative analysis of the latest housing policies in Brazil and India at the Indian Institute for Human Settlements (IIHS) which deepened the thesis. The thesis relates to a journey that begun 15 years ago. I am grateful to Alena Kubova, Hélène Hatzfel and Panos Mantziaras for their guidance during my B.Arch. and M.Arch. at the Lyon National School of Architecture (ENSAL) and Jérôme Monnet for his supervision during my M.Sc. in Urban Planning at the French Institute of Urbanism (IFU). Thanks for giving me a taste for undertaking academic research and providing me with the necessary tools. 3 I am also grateful to Lu Petersen, Fernado Cavallieri and Jorge Mario Jáuregui for their support during the fieldworks in Rio de Janeiro, as well as to my PhD colleagues from the Bartlett DPU, UCL and elsewhere for the innumerable academic and non-academic discussions and exchanges that enriched the thesis process. I would like to thanks the people that made the thesis an exciting and wonderful journey. Thanks to Cristina Inclan for her insightful comments and support. Thanks to Diogo Maroja, Jonatan Pontes, Maria Alejandra Pulgar, Carolina Dardi, Fabio Barbosa and Marcus Cruz for the amazing moments in Rio de Janeiro. Thanks to Christine Oram, Ramon Caraveo and 'los compañeros' Isabel Lopzstrada and Fernando Hidalgo, for the entertaining lunches. Thanks to Zhara Sharif, Omar Bacarreza, Daniela Sanches and Sheldom Hall for the agreeable barbecues, dinners and birthday parties. Thanks to Gabriela Oliveira and Thomas Oehler for the countless dinners at the 5th floor and excellent music, and to Giulia Bruni Roccia for the many breakfasts and delightful tête-à-tête. Thanks to Team Cleo for the great Saturdays and to Stefano Benedetti for his support and always enjoyable conversations. Thanks to Gautam Bhan, Neha Sami and Kavita Kwankhade for their encouragement, as well as to Teja Malladi and Nanthu Nanthakumar for their friendship. Finally, a special thanks to my parents Adelia and Helios and siblings Helios and Lorena for their unconditional love and support. Thanks for being there for me through thick and thin. 4 ABSTRACT Through the theoretical perspective of the Political Sociology of Public Policy Instruments (Lascoumes & Le Galès 2004), the thesis explores the role of the slum upgrading instrument in the evolution of Rio de Janeiro's housing policy and governance. Specifically, it examines the significance of slum upgrading choice and use over the past two decades. The research is guided by the following question: how did the slum upgrading influence Rio de Janeiro's housing policy and governance development from 1993 to 2012? The research considers three hypotheses: 1. The slum upgrading contributed to produce the inflexion points of the evolution of Rio's housing policy. 2. The slum upgrading fostered the transformation of Rio's housing governance. 3. The slum upgrading supported the depoliticization of Rio's housing policy. On its theoretical stand, the research builds on the one hand on the Political Sociology of Public Policy Instruments (PPI) approach that argues that policy instruments contribute to structure public policy as they generate specific effects (Lascoumes & Le Galès 2004). On the other, the research builds on the Actor-Network-Theory (ANT) that understands 'the social' as an heterogeneous network of entities called 'actants' created by a specific movement of 'associations' conceptualized as 'translation' (Latour 2005; Callon 1986). Based on these perspectives, the thesis analysed the slum upgrading as a 'policy instrument', itself being an 'actant'. Subsequently, through 'detective work' (Austrin & Farnsworth 2005), the thesis delved into the unfolding of Rio's slum upgrading network of 'associations' using primary municipal archives, semi-structured interviews and policy documents. The investigation resulted in the production of a chronological 'thick description' which reveals the slum upgrading role in Rio's housing policy and governance transformation. 5 TABLE OF CONTENT ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS 3 ABSTRACT 5 TABLE OF CONTENT 6 LIST OF FIGURES 9 LIST OF TABLES 10 LIST OF ACRONYMS AND ABBREVIATIONS 11 INTRODUCTION 13 FROM HOUSING CONSTRUCTION TO SLUM UPGRADING AS POLICY APPROACH 14 THE CASE OF RIO DE JANEIRO 15 RESEARCH OBJECTIVE AND METHODS 17 THESIS STRUCTURE 19 CHAPTER 1 ANALYSING PUBLIC POLICY BY ITS INSTRUMENTS 22 1.1 INTRODUCTION 22 1.2 ADOPTING A POLITICAL SOCIOLOGY PERSPECTIVE 23 1.2.1 POLICY ANALYSIS DISCIPLINE 23 1.2.2 TOWARDS A POLITICAL SOCIOLOGY PERSPECTIVE 24 1.3 PPI AS ANALYTICAL ENTRY 26 1.3.1 THE PPI APPROACH AND ITS THEORETICAL LINKAGES 26 1.3.2 THE PPI APPROACH: CORE CONCEPTS 29 1.4 THE PPI AT THE 'BIRTHPLACE OF SAMBA AND BEAUTIFUL SONGS' 32 1.4.1 CONSIDERING NEW TERRITORIES AND LIMITATIONS 32 1.4.2 PPI METHODS: SOME CONSIDERATIONS 34 1.5 CONCLUSION 34 CHAPTER 2 RIO'S CASE AND GAPS IN THE LITERATURE 36 2.1 INTRODUCTION 36 2.2 REDEFINING MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT ROLE IN THE HOUSING POLICY 37 2.2.1 THE DECLINE OF THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT HOUSING INTERVENTIONS 37 2.2.2 THE RISE OF MUNICIPALITIES AS KEY ACTORS IN THE HOUSING SECTOR 40 2.3 FEDERAL GOVERNMENT COMEBACK 42 2.3.1 REORGANIZATION OF HOUSING SECTOR 42 2.3.2 RESHAPING MUNICIPAL ACTIONS THROUGH MASSIVE INVESTMENTS 44 2.3.3 LATEST FEDERAL GOVERNMENT HOUSING INITIATIVES 46 2.4 RIO DE JANEIRO CASE: GAPS IN THE LITERATURE 49 2.4.1 RIO EXPERIENCE: AN INTRODUCTION 49 2.4.2 THE POLICY INSTRUMENT AND GAPS IN THE LITERATURE 52 2.4.3 RESEARCH QUESTION AND HYPOTHESES 55 2.5 CONCLUSION 56 6 CHAPTER 3 INVESTIGATING THE SLUM UPGRADING AS AN 'ACTANT' 58 3.1 INTRODUCTION 58 3.2 ANT AS OPERATIONAL FRAMEWORK 59 3.2.1 ANT: AN OVERVIEW 59 3.2.2 ANT AND THE PPI APPROACH CONVERGENCES 61 3.2.3 ANT AND RIO'S INVESTIGATION 64 3.3 RIO DE JANEIRO INVESTIGATION: FIRST STEPS 67 3.3.1 ADOPTING A DETECTIVE APPROACH 67 3.3.2 RIO DE JANEIRO'S INVESTIGATION DIRECTION 71 3.4 EXPANDING THE NETWORK: EXPLORING INSTRUMENTATION 73 3.4.1 INVESTIGATION BETWEEN BRAZIL AND THE UK 73 3.4.2 OVERCOMING DATA COLLECTION 78 3.4.3 PROCESSING AND ORGANIZING DATA 82 3.5 CONCLUSION 86 CHAPTER 4 TOWARDS THE URBANIZATION OF RIO DE JANEIRO'S FAVELAS 88 4.1 INTRODUCTION 88 4.2 HOUSING POLICY IN THE FEDERAL DISTRICT CONTEXT 89 4.2.1 HOUSING INITIATIVES IN RIO DE JANEIRO: THE ORIGINS 89 4.2.2 BETWEEN HOUSING CONSTRUCTION AND URBANIZATION 90 4.3 HOUSING POLICY IN THE CITY STATE CONTEXT 92 4.3.1 TOWARDS FAVELAS EVICTION AND RAZING 92 4.3.2 SHIFTING HOUSING POLICY DIRECTION AFTER THE FUSION 96 4.4 HOUSING POLICY AT THE MUNICIPALITY SINCE 1980S 98 4.4.1 CONSOLIDATION OF THE URBANIZATION OF FAVELAS 98 4.4.2 CONVERGENCE TOWARDS FAVELAS' URBANIZATION AS HOUSING APPROACH 100 4.5 CONCLUSION 104 CHAPTER 5 SLUM UPGRADING: HOLDING TOGETHER 105 5.1 INTRODUCTION 105 5.2 THE EMERGENCE OF SLUM UPGRADING 106 5.2.1 THE COGNITIVE AND NORMATIVE FOUNDATIONS 106 5.2.2 THE CONSTITUTION OF THE SLUM UPGRADING 109 5.2.3 THE BUILDING OF ALLIANCES 113 5.3 GROWING STRONGER 119 5.3.1 SUPPORTING THE CREATION OF THE MUNICIPAL HOUSING SECRETARIAT 119 5.3.2 ADAPTATIONS AND ADOPTIONS 123 5.3.3 EXPANDING ALLIANCES, SECURING CONTINUITY 129 5.4 HOLDING TOGETHER 137 5.4.1 COMPLICATED IMPLEMENTATION 137 5.4.2 UNDERMINING CRITICS AND OPPOSITION 144 5.4.3 APPROACHING THE NEW MILLENNIUM: EXPANDING THE ALLIANCES 148 5.5 CONCLUSION 152 7 CHAPTER 6 ABANDONING THE SLUM UPGRADING 156 6.1 INTRODUCTION 156 6.2 THE BEGINNING OF THE SLUM UPGRADING DECLINE 157 6.2.1 THE DISLOCATION OF THE SLUM UPGRADING POLITICAL SUPPORT 157 6.2.2 SLUM UPGRADING LOSING CREDIBILITY 161 6.3 THE WEAKENING OF THE SLUM UPGRADING 167 6.3.1 ADMINISTRATIVE FRAGMENTATION & POLITICO-ELECTORAL DISINTEREST 167 6.3.2 GROWING DISINTEREST 175 6.4 THE SLUM UPGRADING FALL 183 6.4.1 LOSING FINANCIAL SUPPORT 183 6.4.2 OPPOSITION AND COLLECTIVE ABANDON 185 6.5 CONCLUSION 195 CHAPTER 7 SLUM UPGRADING: RISING FROM THE ASHES 199 7.1 INTRODUCTION 199 7.2 NEW LEASE OF LIFE 200 7.2.1 WAKING UP 200 7.2.2 SLUM UPGRADING