Megacity Case Study

The services arrived after the people

Rio de Janeiro sits on the Atlantic coast of south east Brazil around Guanabara Bay, and it is the country's second city after Sao Paulo: about 6.2 million people at the 2022 census, with roughly 12 million across the wider metropolitan area. It matters nationally and internationally, which is why it hosted the 2014 World Cup final and the 2016 Olympic Games, and it is a major port, an oil and gas centre and Brazil's best known tourist destination. It also contains more than 1,000 favelas, holding around 1.4 million people, close to a fifth of the city. Rocinha, the largest, has roughly 70,000 residents. The usual explanation is poverty, and it is not enough. The real mechanism is speed. Through the second half of the twentieth century people arrived from the drought-prone north east of Brazil far faster than water pipes, sewers, power lines and roads could be laid, and the city had no housing ready for them. So they built their own, on the land nobody else wanted, which in Rio means the steep hillsides and the marshy ground at the edges. Services arrived after the people instead of before them, and almost everything that follows comes from that single fact: no mains connection, no sewer, no legal title and therefore no address for a bill or a delivery, and streets too steep and too narrow for a refuse lorry or an ambulance. That reframing decides the response. If the problem were simply bad housing, clearing it would fix it. Because the problem is missing services beneath housing people have already built, upgrading beats clearance, and that is what the second half of this topic is about.

Six terms, and two of them are often muddled

The third and fourth are the pair that gets confused, and the examiner report singles it out: they are different causes of growth and they need separating.

How growth outruns the pipes

Six stages explain why a fast growing city ends up with informal settlements. Put them in order.

• People arrive from the countryside faster than anyone predicted, looking for work
• There is no housing ready for them and nothing they could afford if there were
• Families build their own homes on land nobody else wants, the steep slopes and the wet ground
• Because the land is not legally theirs, the city will not lay pipes or run cables to it
• Water is carried or tapped illegally, waste runs in open channels, and refuse lorries cannot get up the lanes
• The settlement becomes permanent anyway, built of brick and concrete, with services still missing beneath it

Why upgrade rather than clear?

A city can demolish an informal settlement and rehouse residents elsewhere, or improve it where it stands. Which reasoning best supports upgrading?

• Because the housing is not the problem. People built it themselves and much of it is solid; what is missing is underneath it, in the form of water, sewerage, paved access and legal title. Clearance also severs residents from the jobs, classrooms and neighbours that drew them to that spot in the first place, so it destroys something that functions in order to replace something that was never at fault.
• Because upgrading is always cheaper than building new housing.
• Because residents would object to being moved.
• Because the settlements are temporary and will disappear on their own.

Sorted by category, which is how the marks are given

The content map is explicit that mark schemes reward organised, categorised knowledge rather than a story told in order, so learn this case study in these boxes and write it in them too.

Match each fact to what it demonstrates

Boxes, not a story

The single commonest way to lose marks on a case study is to tell it as a narrative. A candidate starts with the founding of the city, works forward through the twentieth century, arrives at the present, and produces four pages the mark scheme cannot easily credit. Mark schemes are written in categories, so learn the material in categories and write it in them: opportunities against challenges, and challenges split social, economic and environmental. That is also a memory aid under pressure. If you can remember the boxes you can remember what goes in them, and if a question asks only about environmental challenges you can find them without rereading everything you know. Attach a figure or a date to each point. A named case study with no numbers in it is a general answer wearing a place name, and the examiner cannot tell whether you studied Rio or read about cities in general. One figure per point is plenty. Two more. Judge the response instead of listing it, because a scheme that was built and then not maintained is a more interesting and more accurate verdict than one that was simply successful. And mind the register: the people who live in these settlements built the housing the city failed to provide, run businesses in it and organise within it. Writing about them as helpless, or as the cause of the city's problems, is inaccurate as well as unkind, and it reads immediately as a candidate who has not understood what they are describing.

Complete the Rio case study figures

Rio de Janeiro recorded roughly _____ million residents at the 2022 census, with about 12 million across the wider metropolitan area, and around _____ million of those residents live in favelas, close to a fifth of the city. The largest of them houses something near _____ people. The upgrading scheme named in this case study ran from _____ to 2008, covered 253 favelas and cost in the region of one billion US dollars. Its successor, announced in 2010, undertook to reach every favela in the city by _____ and was largely abandoned after 2013.

Spot the three sound case study statements

Select the THREE statements that could stand as they are in an answer.

• Informal settlements grew because arrivals outpaced the laying of pipes, cables and roads, so families built housing on land the city had not serviced, which is why the shortfall is underneath the housing rather than in it.
• Growth came from rural to urban migration and from natural increase together, since migrants are mostly young adults and a city goes on growing for a generation after they arrive.
• Favela Bairro reached roughly 250,000 people across 253 favelas between 1995 and 2008, while its successor promised every favela by 2020 and stalled, so upgrading works where it is maintained.
• Favelas are temporary settlements that will disappear as the economy grows.
• The residents of these settlements are waiting for the government to come and improve their lives.
• The best way to answer a case study question is to tell the story of the city from its founding to the present day.

A 9-mark evaluation, marked

Evaluate the success of an urban planning scheme you have studied in improving the quality of life for the urban poor. [9 marks] Favela Bairro in Rio de Janeiro ran from 1995 to 2008, cost in the region of one billion US dollars, and covered 253 favelas, reaching roughly 250,000 residents. Its approach was upgrading rather than clearance, which was the right diagnosis: the housing had been built by the residents themselves and much of it was solid, so what was missing lay underneath it. The scheme paved and lit streets so that refuse lorries and ambulances could reach homes that had been unreachable, laid water and sewerage where waste had run in open channels, built health centres and nurseries, and granted legal title to residents who had lived for decades in houses the city did not recognise. That last point is easy to underrate: an address makes it possible to hold a bank account, receive a delivery and prove where you live to an employer. Against that, the limits are real and they are about time rather than design. The successor scheme, Morar Carioca, was announced in 2010 with the aim of upgrading every favela in the city by 2020, and was largely abandoned after 2013, so most settlements never received what the first scheme had demonstrated. The cable car built over Complexo do Alemao opened in 2011 and stopped running in 2016 because there was no money to operate it, which left residents with a piece of infrastructure they could see and could not use. Wider problems were untouched: roughly half the sewage entering Guanabara Bay was being treated rather than the 80 per cent promised around the 2016 Games, and crime and insecure work remained. My judgement is that the scheme succeeded at what it attempted and that what it attempted was too small a share of the problem. Where it was applied it changed daily life measurably, so the model is sound; the failure is one of continuation, since building something and keeping it running are different achievements and it is the second that has repeatedly not happened in Rio. What earned the marks: a named scheme with cost, dates and coverage; effects explained as consequences rather than listed; a limitation that is specific and dated rather than a general "not everyone benefited"; and a judgement that separates the design from the follow through instead of settling on successful or unsuccessful.

Find the two that would cost marks

Five sentences from answers about a megacity case study. Two would lose credit for how they are written rather than for being factually wrong. Tap those TWO.

• The people living there cannot do anything for themselves and are waiting for the government to help them.
• Arrivals outpaced the laying of pipes and roads, so housing was built on unserviced land and the shortfall sits underneath it.
• Rio was founded in the sixteenth century, grew through the colonial period, and became the capital before losing that status.
• The scheme changed daily life where it reached, but its successor stalled after 2013, so the model works and the continuation does not.
• Granting legal title mattered because an address makes a bank account, a delivery and a job application possible.

Build the mechanism sentence

Assemble the sentence that explains why the settlements exist.

Four decisions in a fast growing city

Each situation is a real choice a city authority faces. Follow the geography rather than the instinct.

• A hillside settlement of 12,000 people has solid brick houses, no sewer connection and lanes too narrow for a lorry. The council can clear it and rehouse people on the edge of the city.
• A minister says the city will stop growing once rural migration slows.
• A global sporting event is coming and the organisers promise to treat 80 per cent of the sewage entering the bay.
• A cable car built to connect a hillside settlement to the transport network has been closed for two years because there is no operating budget.

Explain and judge

For a named city in an LIC or NEE, explain the challenges created by rapid urban growth and evaluate one scheme intended to improve conditions for people living in informal settlements. [9 marks]

• Growth as migration and natural increase together
• A case study without numbers is a general answer wearing a place name
• The scheme's cost, dates and coverage
• Residents as people who built what is there