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Urbanization and social transformation
In the last 10 years Heliópolis has undergone significant urban transformation, product of interventions of municipal and federal governments. Projects such as the federal government's Growth Acceleration Program (PAC) continue in implementation phase, with new construction of housing developments already in progress. At the municipal level, the Heliópolis Urbanization Program, from the municipality of São Paulo, foresees the construction of 1,341 housing units until 2016. Operations include infrastructure projects, such as the construction of paths and gutters and the channeling of the drainage system.
From the methodological point of view, we consider two operational components of the notion of "urbanization" mentioned in the previous paragraph: one is the personal dynamics of life of the residents of Heliópolis and the other, the economic exchange that occurs in its interior "urban" space.
During the study period, for example, various ways in which the state’s intervention in housing construction impacts the socio-economic living status was examined, most of the time accompanied by the eviction of homes and the significant change in the balances of the place’s real estate issue. Public entities remove families from their old homes and then finance them the rent on a new house until the definitive housing projects are ready, transferring the equivalent to six months’ rent and ensuring the delivery of an apartment, although in many cases there might be more than one family living in the same house.
Homeowners in the area took advantage of the municipality giving out checks in an amount equal to six months’ rent and exponentially raised prices; others refused to rent from those who were not beneficiaries of the municipality, which ensured them advance payment. Some families also took advantage of the conditions offered by the public authorities and occupied houses in the areas of evictions after the departure of residents. In order to receive the check towards the rent of an apartment in the housing projects, they alleged, afterwards, to have always lived there. As a response, the municipality demolished the houses where families were evicted from and left debris in place to prevent the construction of new houses.
This example serves to illustrate that when we speak of "urbanization" in Heliópolis, we should highlight that this has been an ongoing process that has led to constant transformations, but also to "externalities" that have hardly been learned. Nor is it possible to reduce the "urbanization" in its explicit signs such as the paving of streets, water and electricity distribution, access to a sewerage system, internet etc. In Heliópolis, urbanization assumes significant aspects that go well beyond changes in the infrastructure and includes a strong component that is expressed in the form of changes in the socio-economic reality of the favela.
As already stated, after so many years of interventions is still possible to say that Heliópolis is in what can be considered a transitional state from favela to neighborhood. In almost 40 years, therefore, little was achieved in terms of integration with the city's various centers and glebas.
Since the 1980's, Heliópolis is suffering public interventions in the attempt to stabilize and revitalize it. Reflection of an era in which São Paulo lived the contradiction to mix great economic development with serious social issues, especially the lack of housing and urban infrastructure. The city had about 400,000 people living in favelas that year, however, public investments were aimed primarily at the central regions and most valued neighborhoods.
During the administration of Reynaldo de Barros (1979-1982), the municipality, trying to meet the demands of residents, introduced a program of urbanization, the Pro-Favelas, which provided improvements in the housing infrastructure. That program was intended however for the areas regularized legally, which was not the case of Heliópolis. The locality, although having some organization among residents for being in an area owned by the federal government, the IAPAS, was not covered by the program. In this period, Heliópolis would be target of other municipal projects such as Pro-luz and Pro-water, which began to be implemented at the beginning of 1982 and had a high impact on the quality of life of the residents.
During the administration of Mario Covas (1983-1985), Heliópolis still had to deal with the grileiros’ actions and the violence generated by them to ensure domain over the area. In 1984, with the area transferred from the IAPAS to the National Bank of Housing (BNH), under the administration of the Housing Company of São Paulo (Cohab), a plan was presented by the Regional Administration of Social Services of Ipiranga, which sought to eradicate the favela through urbanization, building more than 10,000 lots. The plan was not fully completed and some proposals were presented but eventually not carried into practice, until the Cohab began construction of 6,420 apartments. Of them, only 318 were finished. At that time the main demand of the residents, who already had an organized movement, was the implementation of water and electricity systems.
After taking office in the municipality of São Paulo, Mayor Jânio Cuadros (1986-1988) defined as one of the priorities of his administration the urban cleaning and desfavelamento. His practice was to evict residents from their homes, often with the use of violence and prevent the realization of mutirões for the construction of new housing. During the administration of Luiza Erundina (1989-1992) Cuadros’ policy, widely criticized, was set aside and communal urbanization projects emerged, organized by the municipality with the associations of residents. The mutirões resumed and many streets were paved. The pact, however, was interrupted during the administration of Paulo Maluf (1993-1996), which prioritized the construction of buildings of the Singapur project to relocate residents of the favela without worrying about creating new public facilities, such as kindergartens or urban infrastructure in Heliópolis.
With the start of the 2000s, the housing effort focused on the partnership between the municipality and residents of Heliópolis. In 2005, the Municipal Office of Housing developed a new housing policy that resulted in the development of the Municipal Plan of Social Housing of the city of São Paulo. In Heliópolis, the program drew up guidelines for the intervention of the public authority from an urban plan that envisioned the construction of new housing, integrating other offices to achieve four objectives: transportation, housing, environment and compact neighborhood. The idea was to "provide the recognition of Heliópolis as part of the city. Diagnoses pointed out the need for resettlement of approximately 5,000 families of Heliópolis, still living in areas of risk or harmful to their health." The new housing units would be built "prioritizing a typological diversity that serves the various profiles of residents." {23}
In 2008, the contract for work of the Growth Acceleration Program (PAC) in Heliópolis was signed. Four years later, in April 2012, the Caixa Econômica Federal delivered 421 housing units of the Comandante Taylor Residential Complex. The homes were built with resources from the PAC and given to 15,884 low income families.
According to the municipality of São Paulo, the construction of another 1,341 units is planned, along with the restoration and expansion of seven community centers and the urbanization of the area of the Canal Independência for 2017.
Urbanization and commerce in Heliópolis
Nearly all streets in Heliópolis present some kind of commerce. In general, the business is not recognized for being located in a non-regularized area, and therefore does not pay taxes. Malaquías tells that there was a great expansion of small businesses in Heliópolis at the beginning of the 1990s with the decrease of offers for formal work in the city of São Paulo. This type of activity began as an alternative to generate household income, setting up precariously "in a small door", in a shack or even with the offer of products door to door, which often grew enough so that owner would increase his sales becoming rich within the favela, buying properties and owning a home. {24}
During our field work we surveyed hundreds of small businesses located in different areas of the favela, something that Malaquías had also noticed in terms of a great variety of types of businesses such as "bars and grocery stores, shoe stores, emporiums, butchers, bakeries, pharmacies and an infinity of stores." {25} This author also coincided with us on the existence of a hyper valuation of goods marketed in the locality, being the products sold at prices much higher than those found outside. Therefore, besides the low cost in the maintenance of the establishment (tax free), there is also an over profit due to speculation. That way there would be a transition in the business as a mean of survival towards a lucrative business, as well as the increase in intensity of the dispute for the internal market.
In terms of urbanization, we observed that the distribution of commerce cannot be directly associated to the physical condition of the streets, because most part of them are paved. Yet, highways - as the Avenida Delamare and the Rua Comandante Taylor - do not have large concentrations of businesses despite the favorable physical conditions (extension, paving, lighting, etc.). A hypothesis that explains the concentration of commerce within Heliópolis is confirmed in streets that have vehicle circulation associated with a greater flow of people. These roads, however, are of slow traffic not of intense traffic of cars and buses, therefore, they are an ideal place for the installation of small businesses.
It was noticed that a common characteristic between the concentrations of commerce within Heliópolis is the fact of them being located on long streets and not in passages. Almost all access roads facilitate transit: there are not big hills or drops that difficult the traffic of people, as it happens in Rocinha. In Heliópolis, almost all streets are paved and all waste waters are channeled. With that, the flow of residents is not influenced negatively by the area’s physical characteristics as it happens in its Carioca counterpart. The only difference observed between the passageways in Heliópolis is a relative range of amplitude that makes possible or not the transit of cars and buses with greater or lesser intensity. In the case of the small passages, the transit of vehicles (except motorcycles) is impossible, which makes an active flow of commerce impractical, being those areas mainly residential.
From this finding it was possible to link the main roads of the favela with a stronger flow of functional traffic of people and services in the same way we did in 2009 during our work in the peripheral areas of Lima, in Peru. Main roads facilitate a concentration of commercial activity - which does not exclude commercial activity that occurs in the passages. It is possible to think about a closer relationship between urbanization (in terms of streets paving or access) and commercial activity.