New Perspectives for Rio de Janeiro

Roberto Cabot : As we are entering the era of the hyperdense megalopolis, we are questioning the future of cities conceived according to classical planning models. Given this context of profound change, what makes Rio an attractive proposition?

Washington Fajardo : There clearly is a phenomenon of urban densification at play. The demographic density in Rio de Janeiro is the same as it was during its heyday at the beginning of the nineteenth century. In the 1960s—an important period for Rio as it lost is status as a national capital and because this postwar period saw the emergence of the neighborhood of Barra da Tijuca and the rise of the automobile—we stopped adopting any policies and conceiving Rio as a phenomenon of European origin, and fully embraced the model of American modernity. This explains the current low demographic density, which doesn’t provide a fertile ground for the flowering of ideas and encounters. 

Nevertheless, Rio de Janeiro has some unique characteristics linked to our history which shed light on our urban condition in the twentieth century. With its natural environment and the leisure opportunities it generates, Rio will have an increasing weight among the twenty-first century’s major urban conglomerations. In a way, we are reconnecting with the nineteenth century, when cities invented public space as a reaction to the Industrial Revolution. Rio de Janeiro has some interesting assets but it needs to revisit the model which focuses on the notion of enjoyment in the city.

Low density

Roberto Cabot : Regarding low density, you are talking about average values but Copacabana is one of the world’s densest districts—is this marked difference between low-density and high-density districts a specificity of Rio de Janeiro?

Washington Fajardo : Rio looks like “Swiss cheese”: a territory riddled with empty spaces which historically correspond to granite peaks, large mountain ranges, forests—its urban fabric is therefore not continuous. If we were to leave Cinelândia in the direction of Copacabana, we would have trouble finding ways of passage: you need to go to Lapa, then through Gloria, then from Flamengo to Botafogo. The granite peaks, the tunnels—all these bottlenecks for spatial fluidity naturally lead to the fragmentation of the urban fabric.

Density is in fact very low today: in Copacabana, it is equivalent to that of Paris but that is a unique case among the city’s neighborhoods. Rio’s downtown has an extremely low density—nobody lives there! This is a problem. The deserted kilometer-long Rua do Ouvidor was once the symbol of the zenith of the Gilded Age in Rio de Janeiro—we shouldn’t equate the city center to the colonial period: Rio’s most interesting period is the Gilded Age, which is reflected in Cinelândia and Ouvidor.

Roberto Cabot : This is the result of a traditional model in Rio’s history: excessively sectorized and disconnected layouts.

Washington Fajardo : It’s a Latin-American model actually, in which urban space has two functions: one economic and the other political. The expansion of the urban fabric sets in motion some economic processes. In terms of urban development, the industrial model hasn’t been relevant in the case of Rio since the end of the 1970s. André Urani’s studies, such as his book Trilhas para o Rio (Paths for Rio, 2008), clearly show that during the 1980s, around eighty percent of jobs in the industrial sector disappeared. Rio hasn’t escaped from global trends and is experiencing the very same changes which are occurring in the rest of the world. However the fact that certain urban principles haven’t been implemented puts us in a bleak situation, especially regarding the important issue of mobility. You can be sure that abandoning the industrial economy wouldn’t have had such an impact on the city if its mobility had been higher and more aggregative. Rio has thus been more highly exposed than other cities to the negative consequences of this global paradigm shift.

Role of the state

Roberto Cabot : Brazil has recently experienced violent protest movements, particularly so in Rio de Janeiro. These protests are rooted in the issue of urban mobility. People aren’t protesting about housing issues anymore—we have moved on to something else: how should I go from home to work, to go and enjoy myself, to visit my parents or my friends. What is the solution to the issue of mobility in Rio de Janeiro, with all this fragmentation you mention?

Washington Fajardo : The city has made some planning investments in this regard. Its territorial integration plan dates back to 1965—emphasis was on the roads but this plan has since changed and the BRT (Bus Rapid Transit) system, which is its most recent outcome, has been operational for the past two years. Today, eighteen percent of the population is using this high-capacity transportation system and this figure is going to reach sixty percent.

I would like to draw attention to an aspect I find important and which is, for that matter, rarely discussed: the role of government in the city. These social movements and protests are the direct result of the inefficient management of Brazil’s urban territory, which is linked to the redefinition of the state during these past two decades. Political structures and territorial organization have indeed been carried out according to the principle of the minimal state, due to longstanding public opinion on the state’s inefficiency, but there can be no urban planning without government. Indeed, the free market will never assume responsibility for this function because the organization of the common good necessarily comes under the purview of the state, which generates its own planning. But although the Brazilian government is still interested in sectoral issues and in the social and economic agendas, since the 1970s it has abandoned territorial programs of metropolitan planning.

In Rio de Janeiro’s case, this question has been completely set aside. The mayor of Niterói recently called the mayor of Rio to ask him to postpone the demolition of the “Perimetral” by one weekend. This phone call from one mayor to another in the Guanabara Bay represents the first urban planning meeting in thirty years. Structural issues have been abandoned because we have focused on finding solutions to economic and social issues, the solution to the other problems of the city supposedly following suit. This was a big mistake. In reality, from the point of view of urban affairs, the issue of the state’s presence and of urban planning need to be urgently revised. In my experience of the public sector, as planning practices were gradually set aside, the planning mindset also started to disappear. Government bodies which carry out planning end up being weakened, not because of the people in place, but because of this kind of free market thinking. Nevertheless, at the end of the day, although the organization of transport can indeed be conceded to private operators, its planning can only be carried out by the government.

Roberto Cabot: Is the issue of public-private partnerships essential now that they have become one of the key practices of Rio’s urban policy?

Washington Fajardo: This is indeed the case due to the end of the welfare state, which also had an urban dimension. I consider that public-private partnerships are an excellent solution to give effect to decisions which were generated by public planning, even though the latter clearly remains a responsibility of the state. I insist on the fact that these partnerships and this model are good things, even though they were created by Thatcher’s government. They been adopted in different countries, in Scandinavia for instance, but if the government doesn’t know what it wants and doesn’t hold its operators accountable, this type of contract will always tend to failure.

 Roberto Cabot: Rio has a long history and some very “heavy” heritage. How can our city balance the need for growth and renewal with that of preserving its heritage and its leisure industry?

Washington Fajardo: I appreciate the fact that you talk about the “weight” of this heritage because it is interesting to think about its materiality and its density, which relates to the two very different historical epochs of Rio—that of the city as Brazil’s capital and that of the city as a simple municipality. Rio is 450 years old but it has only existed as a municipality since 1975, which is why I say that Rio is now an adolescent city, which is still learning to know itself.

 Rio had no autonomy—its function was to envision the country’s progress. The urban space itself was conceived and projected as lessons, as models destined to be adopted by other Brazilian cities. It was the city-as-a-standard, but after 1975 it had to become autonomous and to manage its problems by itself—a complete novelty in more than four centuries of existence.

 The city’s heritage institute, which I’m in charge of, became active in 1984 during the period of redemocratization. It was created due to the opposition to a project of a north-south avenue which would rip apart the Saara neighborhood and tear down the Real Gabinete Português de Leitura. Civil society reacted, which led to repercussions on the way the studies were carried out by municipal technicians. That is how the “cultural corridor” was born. Since that time this corridor has acquired some political legitimacy and has become the focal point of collective interests. It now conveys other values than that of federal heritage, i.e., the value of the urban ensemble, of public space and eclecticism, which were neglected by the heritage authorities up to that point.

Economics of culture

Roberto Cabot : In a recently published article, you contend that creativity forms part of Rio’s DNA. How is that expressed in the rehabilitation efforts of public space?

Washington Fajardo : This functionalist vision has governed the spatial organization of Rio: we now have a situation where its central districts are based on traditional retail and service activities—something specific to this city of hawkers of textiles, of plastic objects, and the like. However, there is a very limited presence of small and medium organizations linked to culture—what we call the creative economy. I don’t like that term very much and I prefer to talk about “knowledge economies” and “cultural economies”—I consciously use the plural form because I believe that a great many of these exist. Their presence is very limited in this area, even though there is an institutional presence: arcane museums with no visitors. We are seeking to stimulate these small and medium initiatives so that culture and knowledge return to the historical city center. Indeed, if we consider the way places are created, these professionals are forging bonds with these places, unlike retailers, who only create affects of a functional nature. I think that in the case of an architectural practice, a design firm, or an art workshop, you end up having varied relationships and connections, and that has strong repercussions in terms of urban affairs, which is why we must stimulate the initiatives which address this challenge. That being said, the primary type of infrastructure remains residential.

Roberto Cabot : What I find interesting in what you are saying is that through the redevelopment projects of the Rio Branco avenue, we are going back to the 1905 project, in terms of traffic for instance. For the past century, we have worked on reforming the center—something which basically proved inefficient. Now that we are trying to reinvent the city center, isn’t the original design proving to be the best option?

Informal and transitory

Roberto Cabot : There is also the issue of the city’s development and social inequalities: is Rio providing any solutions to this problem?

Washington Fajardo : We are facing many challenges. I will use the word “favela” but we should be talking about “informal areas” (or even “subformal areas” as the IBGE [Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics] calls them). Let us not forget that these are areas produced through informal methods. That’s where the challenge lies. I worked on the Favela-Neighborhood project when I was a student and then as a recent graduate with a few different colleagues. It was an important professional experience for me. Actually, many architects and urban planners were working on the informal areas but the emergence of violence and the withdrawal of government has put an end to that. I think we have achieved important outcomes in terms of security and the recent policies have proved wise.

To come back to the issue of public space, it strikes me that before it is considered in its physical dimension, it is considered in its material dimension. As a result, there is a political dimension to it, and urban planning stems from this. This raises some thorny issues, where dogmatic thinking prevails. Sometimes the municipality takes decisions which are within the purview of state planning—for instance when it shuts off high-risk areas, which implies having to evict people. This is a form of dogmatic thinking. Or when it creates a thoroughfare between a plaza in Jacarezinho and another in Riachuelo, which entails an urban development project as well as the construction of new spatial structures and some in-depth reflection about these spaces. From the point of view of urban design, these issues must be treated in a very rational and technical way, through clear dialogue, while retaining a high degree of freedom.

I believe this to be fundamental and I am worried when I see practices which took decades to develop, being set aside because of an ideological debate characterized by extreme and radical stances. These informal areas are the result of state negligence. We have practices which aim to offset budget deficits but don’t have a housing policy which would make it possible for everyone to have a roof. What the heck? Everybody owns a cellphone: there are prepaid plans and postpaid plans, smartphones and older generation phones, but what is important is that everyone is able to communicate and that there is an average of one cellphone for each Brazilian. The housing situation however, is completely different: only a small part of the population can afford to buy real estate and there isn’t even a market offer to satisfy this latent demand. I believe the government should be carrying out its regulatory function and stimulating an appropriate market offer. In large cities, even the most neoliberal, the most planned, the most structured, housing remains accessible, as is the case in New York, Paris, London. Everyone has been through this and this is a major failing of Brazilian cities! I think Rio de Janeiro will soon be able to initiate a similar policy in Brazil. We are at a turning point insofar as we are starting to produce a city with more fairness, more diversity, and where ghettos are starting to be whittled down.