Emerald Planet TV Interview

To watch my interview click here.

For the original invitation click here.

Here is my talk from the Ecocity World Summit

Follow this link to watch the video!

Here is my original announcement of my attendance at the Ecocity World Summit.

This is the Invitation from the Department of Urban Studies and Planning.  This was their series on “Bridging the Gap between research and practice.

David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies

By sjampel

Created 12/01/2011 – 13:26

Date: December 1, 2011

Time: 5:00 pm

Location: MIT, Room 32-155, Stata Center, Cambridge, MA

Contact: Karina Xavier, kxavier@mit.edu [2]

Dr. Janice Perlman – author, academic, policy analyst

“How Research Can Transform Urban Policy and Practice: Lessons from the Mega-Cities Project and Longitudinal Research in Rio’s Favelas.”

About the speaker:

Janice Perlman, Guggenheim Award Winner, is the author of Favela: Four Decades of Living on the Edge in Rio de Janeiro (Oxford University Press, 2010). Favela is the sequel to The Myth of Marginality (University of California Press, Berkeley, 1976) which won the C. Wright Mills Award. Her current work includes an evaluation of nine slum upgrading/livelihood projects in India; research on the Pacifying Police and the Program of Accelerated Growth in Rio; and the Joint US-Brazilian Initiative on Urban Sustainability (JIUS).
She is the Founder and President of the Mega-Cities Project, a transnational non-profit organization doing policy research on innovative approaches to urban problem solving. Founded in 1987 and working in 21 cities on issues at the intersection of poverty, environment and voice, the organization has brokered over 40 innovation transfers across boundaries of geography, ethnicity and nationality.  Many of  these innovations are on display at the UN General Assembly building as part of the Cooper Hewitt Exhibit on CITIES: Design with the 90%.
Perlman holds a BA in Anthropology and Latin American Studies from Cornell University and a PhD in Political Science with a minor in Urban Studies and Planning from MIT. She was a tenured professor in the Department of City and Regional Planning at the University of California, Berkeley. She has taught at New York University, CUNY, Trinity College and in several Brazilian universities. She has also been a senior advisor to numerous international and domestic agencies, non-profits and grassroots groups.
For further information see www.mega-cities.net .
Refreshments will be served.
Doors open at 5:00pm, lecture begins 5:30pm.
Event open to the public.

Ph. 617-495-3366 || Fax. 617-496-2802
1730 Cambridge Street, Cambridge, MA 02138

Comments to DRCLAS Webmaster
© President and Fellows of Harvard College
Harvard University

Links:
[1] http://www.drclas.harvard.edu/node/2240
[2] mailto:kxavier@mit.edu
[3] http://www.mega-cities.net

I am just finishing up an eighteen month study with a local team based at the Catholic University of Rio.  The study focused on the Pacifying Police Units UPPs in three of the favelas in Rio from the perspective of the residents, the community leaders, the youth and the local businessmen.  There are several critical issues not mentioned in this article.

First, there is a real and present danger that the rising real estate prices in the pacified favelas will lead to the kind of gentrification that forces local families out of their communities and into much worse locations and conditions (the gentrification problem).

Second is that a high percentage of the residents of these favela communities earn their livings in the informal sector, operating small businesses, shops, and services, which run on a very low profit margin and if taxed would go out of business.

Third, the pacifying police are playing the role of local government decision-makers and conflict resolution agents, for which they have no training or experience–they are after all part of the same military police that were so often responsible for deaths of innocent people in the favelas and are not free from the corrupting influence of the lucrative drug traffic.  Meanwhile, the traditional residents’ associations have an ambiguous role vis a vis the UPPs and, since mandatory new elections have not been part of the process, many are still controlled by people placed there by the drug traffickers.

Fourth, the second part of the strategy, called UPP Social, which was conceived to bring job preparedness, educational and health services, social benefits and employment into these pacified communities, is thus far either absent or ineffectual in fulfilling these tasks.

Fifth, Rio has over 1200 favelas, of which only twenty or so are currently benefitting from the disarmament programs of the UPP.  In some of these favelas the ratio of the police to the households is one to sixty-eight, so it would be impossible at this rate to have enough police to reach the favela population (which is in excess of 2,000,000 residents).  Not in incidentally, all of the favelas chosen for the UPP are in areas surrounding the sights of Olympic events rather than in areas of greatest need.

And sixth, while residents are certainly grateful for their renewed freedom to come and go at will (without fear of dying in the cross fire of the wars between armed factions) they do not feel any certainty that these pacifying police will remain in their communities after the Olympic games.  They are all too aware that the day the UPP leaves is the day that the drug lords will return.

To read this article click here.

Click here to read more.