Happy 50th Birthday, Brasilia

Today marks the fiftieth birthday of Brasilia, the high-modernist capital of Brazil that was built out of nothing in the plains of Brazil across 41 months in the late-1950s before its inauguration on April 21, 1960.

There's a lot to say here. The history of Brasilia itself is unique. the myth of the city goes back to a Catholic official who had a vision of a great city in Brazil's interior (and the largest cathedral in the city, Catedral Dom Bosco, is named after him). A plan early in the 1820s during Pedro I's empire suggested relocating the capital to the interior of Brazil someday, though it was never enacted. Brazil's constitution had declared for years that eventually the capital would relocate from Rio (which had been the capital from 1763 until 1960). As story goes, while campaigning for president in 1954, Juscelino Kubitschek met a boy who asked when he was going to fulfill the constitution and relocate the capital to the interior. True or not, Kubitschek made Brasilia his primary goal during his administration. The city would simultaneously fulfill a part of the constitution, yes, but more importantly to Kubitschek, it would symbolize the developmental push his administration would oversee ("50 years in 5"), serving as a physical proof to the world that Brazil was truly modern. Planning by Lucio Costa and architecture by (still-alive) Oscar Niemeyer only reinforced this image.

Of course, the city itself is a little more complicated than the official story of its creation. While Kubitschek is inextricably tied to the city's image (and rightfully so), he did more during his administration, include establish development and fiscal policies that ultimately led to increasing inflation that would be a major problem for Joao Goulart, ultimately factoring into his downfall to a military coup. And while the airplane-design remains intact, the city has grown much more quickly than anybody had anticipated, reaching 2.5 million people by the 2000s. The result has been suburbs that are a good 20-25 minute drive away (again, so as to keep the airplane shape in tact).

Brazil projected an image of Brasilia as harmonious and peaceful to the international community, using the city as a perfect symbol of Brazilian society in general. And the politicians and publicists were right: Brasilia is a perfect symbol of Brazil, but not necessarily for the reasons they intended. Poor Northeasterners were brought in to build a city that was explicitly designed not for them, but for the middle class and political elite. The result was a beautiful, modern city for the elite, constructed by poor workers who were then forced to live in shantytowns in neighboring parts of the countryside. Even today, it is simultaneously defined by a society polarized between political elites and the middle class on the one hand, and the extremely poor on the other, living together in the same city yet worlds apart socio-economically. That image that still summarizes much of the socio-economic relations in Brazil even today.

Nonetheless, it truly was a remarkable feat - the fact that it went from literally middle-of-nowhere farmland to a city in name and fact in 5 years was simply amazing, Of course, the transferral of government took a little longer - many politicians were slow to leave Rio for the interior, and many government offices (such as the Ministry of Education) couldn't simply transplant overnight. Indeed, even the first president of Brazil's military dictatorship, Humberto Castello Branco (1964-1967), spent as much time in Rio as in Brasilia. Nonetheless, the federal authority was increasingly concentrated in the city throughout the 1960s, and remains there to this day.

As for the city itself...people love it or hate it. It is an anomaly in Brazil, in that it's almost essential to have a car. Even today, the subway system is incomplete; as you go from the suburbs to the city, you can see the hollowed out concrete stops where there will one day be a station, but not yet. I actually kind of like the city, having been there several times. The architecture isn't to everybody's tastes, but I really liked it, and it's nice seeing a city that has simultaneous uniformity and innovation in its design. I've also never gotten over the fact that it is the only place like it in the world - nowhere else has anybody said, "we're building a new capital right here, in the middle of nowhere," and pulled it off so successfully in such a short time.

As for the reputation of Brasilia as cold, impossible to navigate, and impersonal...I can't agree. Certainly, knowing people there helps in getting around (they'll almost inevitably have a car to help you), but it's not essential. I spent a couple of weeks researching there, with no access to cars, and was still able to get from one of the suburbs into the city and catch a bus to the archive. Sure, I spent a decent amount of time commuting (about 45 minutes each way), but it's not much wore than what many Americans do each day (and I'd spend more time commuting without ever leaving the island of Manhattan when I lived in New York).

I think even scholars who have written on Brasilia (and there aren't many) have often misinterpreted it. Most notably, while I would agree with James Scott's general observations on high modernism, I think he doesn't even misinterpret so much as abuse his evidence drawing on Brasilia. You can in fact walk around the city; more importantly, it absolutely has been home to mass mobilizations and protests, from anti-dictatorship protests in the 1960s to the movement to impeach corrupt president Fernando Collor in 1992 to anti-government protests in the 2000s. The images Scott uses to suggest that Brasilia is inhospitable to mass-protests are deceptive and historically inaccurate. Is it Sao Paulo or Rio? Of course not, but then again, Brasilia isn't nearly as big (2.5 million people) as either of the two main hubs of Brazil (20 million and 11 million people in the respective metropolitan areas).

Many today sort of ignore Brasilia or take it for granted, and I think over time the luster of the city has worn off for many, either due to normalcy or to mere generational differences. That said, as Brasilia turns 50 today, it is worth remembering how remarkable it was and still is, as an artistic achievement, as a declaration of purpose, and for all it represented and represents for Brazil, both in the dreams and the realities.

Eduardo Paes Determined to Destroy Rio de Janeiro through Useless Policies and Class Warfare

This past February, Rio de Janeiro's mayor, Eduardo Paes, launched the first step in his efforts to "clean up" Rio by banning beer vendors on the streets during Carnaval, a drastic and useless move that I hoped would be temporary. When I went to Brazil in June, I had a chance to see just how ugly and damaging Paes's clean-up efforts had become, undoing much of the harmless and enjoyable street life in Rio. Apparently, it has officially become Paes's goal to strip Rio of all of the harmless activities that one finds in public spaces, as he now has launched his assault on the most sacred sites in Rio: the beaches.

Under rules aimed at bringing order to Rio's famous beaches, ball games are among the undesirable activities being curtailed or banned as the city that will host a World Cup and Olympics within seven years seeks to clean up its act. [...]

The beach is just the latest target of a city-wide campaign to bring order to Rio, where traffic and other rules are often seen as optional. Though in place for nearly a year, the effort gained urgency with Rio's selection as 2016 Olympic host.

Rio state this month hired former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, who takes credit for cleaning up the Big Apple, to help advise it on the Brazilian city's crime problems. Rio Mayor Eduardo Paes recently told Cariocas, as Rio residents are known, to stop being such "pigs," referring to their habit of leaving piles of garbage on the beach.

The man in charge of carrying out the new policy, public order secretary Rodrigo Bethlam, said the beach's central place in Rio life made the battle for order there crucial.

"The beach is an emblematic place. If we can succeed in organizing the beach, it means we can organize the city," he told Reuters

This is just ridiculous in so many ways (and keep in mind - we're talking about soccer in Brazil - this isn't just some passing hobby among a handful). Firstly, the beaches are in fact public spaces, meaning they are for use by the public. The notion that playing soccer on the beach (in areas that are informally designated as athletic areas) is somehow "disorderly" and cutting into the power of the state is absurd. Secondly, the idea that if you can organize the beach, you "can organize the city" is stupid beyond description. The beach is in no way representative of all of the non-beach aspects of the city - it is a place of leisure for most, and business for an handful. It is not the financial district. It is not the favelas. True, you do get to see the wide income gap play out on the beach, but solving the "problem" of people playing soccer or volleyball on the beach does nothing to address that income gap, nor to address the issues of murderous police, the drug trade, the enormous gap in wealth, or the troublesome and often disgusting racism and classism of Rio's elites and middle class. Cleaning up the pollution on the beaches is a great idea, but again, has nothing to do with pick-up games of soccer. And it's not like there's an absence of space - while the beaches do get crowded on hot weekends, Copacabana and Ipanema alone are 9 km (about 6 miles) long, and Rio has over 50 miles of beaches.

In other words, this is yet another effort on Paes' part to A) "clean up" the city through absolutely useless gestures that accomplish no real good and detract much from the quotidian in Rio, and B) are specifically targeted towards the middle- and upper-class cariocas who lament how the beaches have become so "dirty" in the last decade or so, as the poor from the northern zone had increasing access to the richer southern neighborhoods in Copacabana and Ipanema. It's the worst kind of "high-modernism" one can find - the state's efforts to control everything end up stripping daily life of all of its harmless joys, all so the state can impose its presence in an obvious way that does nothing to deal with the actual substantial economic, social, and political problems facing a city (or country). Paes could use his office to try to improve the social conditions in the favelas and build up a beneficial state structure; instead, he makes sales of beer on the streets illegal at Carnaval. He could try to end the impunity police face as they enter favelas and kill indiscriminately; instead, he wages a war on beach-front soccer. The uselessness and stupidity of this is just mind-boggling.

And the useless enforcement goes beyond just soccer, touching everything that makes beach life enjoyable in Rio:

Among other cherished beach freedoms being withdrawn are sales of food on skewers such as shrimp and cheese that are hawked by entrepreneurs plying the sands. No longer will beach-goers, known here as "banhistas," be able to bring coolers for drinks or play music on stereos.

The main targets of the new policy are the hundreds of "barracas," or huts, that dot Rio's beaches, renting out deck chairs and selling everything from beer to barbecued meat.

Often emblazoned with their owner's name, they are colorful, if chaotic, fixtures of beach life that laugh in the face of sanitation rules but have their own loyal following.

Under the new rules, names or advertisements are out and they must accept being outfitted with all-white tents and equipment that, while smart-looking, are somewhat bland.

You want to eat on the beach? Sorry - that's no longer an option. You'll have to go to one of the high-end restaurants on the beach-front (restaurants that, not coincidentally, the poorer segments of Rio's population who come from the northern part of the city cannot afford). You want to rent a chair to sit on? Sorry - the guy who has a little tent and rents them out isn't allowed to do that anymore. Bring your own (which won't fit on the buses, again meaning that if you're not from that neighborhood, you're out of luck). Are you gay, and do you want to join other gay individuals in their own section of the beach? Sorry - the tents and flags that the gay community set up so others know where to find them aren't allowed, either. In short, Paes, in his increasingly ego-maniacal effort to control Rio, has launched blatant open class and cultural warfare, all in an effort to strip Rio of its vibrancy in the name of "order."

Fortunately, the people have begun overrule Paes on this one.

They are putting in place their own law, but it's wrong," said Marcel Damasceno de Matos, a 39-year-old who said he has worked his patch of Ipanema beach for 10 years.

"I have customers from the United States and other countries who come back year after year and look for my name. Now there's going to be a lot of confusion."

Still, in a country with no shortage of laws but a glaring lack of enforcement, not everyone on the beach is convinced that the shock of order will end up being so shocking.

"The law exists, but you're in Brazil," said Bernardo Braga, a 26-year-old model and student who was playing "keep up" on the Ipanema seafront.

"You just have to walk along here to see all the rules being ignored."

I already hope cariocas elect him out of office at the end of his term (which, unfortunately, is not for another 3 years). He has made it clear that important changes in the social and economic landscape meant to actually better the lives and existence of cariocas is not on his agenda. Instead, he is intent on imposing the state on the most mundane and harmless aspects of life, driving many out of their livelihoods, while issues like police violence, the drug trade, and disparities in wealth continue to plague Rio.

The Depressing Effects of Eduardo Paes's Efforts to "Clean Up" Rio de Janeiro

I alluded yesterday to the visible changes Rio's mayor, Eduardo Paes (of the centrist Partido Movimento Democratico Brasileiro, PMDB) has effected in the first 6 months of his administration, and overall, they are extremely depressing. Back in February, I wrote about Paes cracking down on the informal economy in Rio, going after not just guys who sell cans of beer on the streets during Carnival, but people who sell corn, books, sunglasses, whatever. The article at the time made clear that this crackdown was not just some rhetorical move (though it was that, too), but was actually being implemented.

I had actually forgotten mostly about this since February, but the moment I hit the streets in Botafogo (in the southern part of Rio, where I was staying), it was immediately clear how strong Paes had cracked down. Many of the vendors I was accustomed to seeing in their usual spots just weren't there anymore. Sure, I hadn't been around in 15 months, and it's possible (and probable) that a vendor or two would move on or die or have some other reason to not be there, but this wasn't a case of one or two vendors gone - nearly everybody who sold anything on the streets was gone. Sure, near Guanabara Bay, the guys who sold pirated DVDs, video games, and computer software were gone - that crackdown on piracy had begun before I left Rio and before Paes was elected. But others were totally absent, too - a guy who sold hot dogs in the evenings a block away from my old apartment; the guy who sold books near a collection of restaurants; the woman who sold candy from a small cart; the guy who sold corn near the beach front. Not one of them was in their old haunts at any time of the day. And even those who had persisted had to be super-careful. In front of the building where I was staying on this trip, there was always a guy selling sunglasses and small housewares and a woman who sold home-made goods. One day, upon returning to the apartment, they (and a few other vendors) were suddenly running towards me. I was initially confused, until I realized (as they were looking back over their shoulders) that the police must be coming to crack down, and they were off to hide.

There is so much wrong with this policy, and this last anecdote points to one of the biggest problems - people adapt to laws. In this case, I actually admire the intelligence in these remaining vendors picking their spots to sell: the building they were stationed in front was on a major one-way street that could only be accessed by coming up this (multi-mile) street through traffic, or turning onto it from another (heavily-congested) one-way street. That may not make much sense, but what that position did was give these people a perfect location to set up shop and have plenty of time for a warning from a lookout if the police were coming. And that was exactly what had happened - the lookout, stationed on the intersecting one-way street, saw the cops coming and gave the signal, and the vendors bolted. By the time the police car had navigated traffic and gotten a green light to come around to the place where the vendors had been, they were out of sight.

To be clear, while I'm strongly against this crackdown in general, there is room for maneuvering here. While I think copyright laws really need to be overhauled, the Brazilian government writ large has been making some efforts to crack down on software and film piracy (while also insisting that companies like Microsoft need to make products more affordable in countries with lower incomes), so if Paes is involved in that, fine. I have a harder time cracking down on guys who sell sunglasses or fake rolexes, but not for legal reasons - I figure if they want to sell it, and people are willing to run the risk to buy it, then fine. It's not like citizens are compelled to only purchase from these vendors. The crackdown really gets indefensible on people whose income in no way is infringing upon the formal market, though - somebody making some delicious deserts to sell on the street for a low price? An old guy who has a bunch of old books to sell setting up his wares on a (very broad) sidewalk? There is no threat there at all, and cracking down on these people is only depriving them of a source of income, one that is even more needed as Brazil officially enters into the global recession.

And it's not like Paes is genuinely concerned about the actual economic effects of these vendors. He made it clear in his campaign, and in his rhetoric since, that this isn't about boosting the formal economy or even cracking down on contraband. It's about "cleaning up" the city, and, as I wrote back in February, that means only one thing:

[B]y appealing to the "Marvelous City" he never had, Paes is also appealing to the worst kind of elitism and repression of Rio's poor. Implying that the "Marvelous City" ("Cidade Maravilhosa," Rio's nickname) can only exist when street vendors are removed from the scene is patently, vulgarly, and quite frankly, unrealistically expecting to just wipe the face of poverty from the city of Rio. In effect, it's saying, "The city can only be beautiful when we keep the favelados and the poor in their own neighborhoods" where, let's not forget, they can easily find themselves victims of police occupations and violence.

Rio's facing a lot of problems, and certainly, some of the more major problems (like police corruption and the violence in the favelas) are, as the article points out, not within Paes's jurisdiction. However, concentrating his emphasis on street vendors and others who are involved in the informal economy not out of any huge entrepreneurship or search for the thrill of illegal activities, but for the simple reason that they are trying to make ends meet, is not only revolting, it's unrealistic. These efforts reveal Paes to be one of the most blatant elitists willing to wage obvious class war on his own city that I've ever seen any politician anywhere pull (as well as the micromanager's micromanager). The fact that he has no social program responses to offer alternatives to street vendors beyond "fines and/or jail" just makes it that much worse.

Rio specifically, and many of Brazil's urban centers more generally, has a rich history of launching "cleanup" campaigns that have only further marginalized the poor (and often racially "darker"), from the 1890s after emancipation and the end of the empire, to the 1920s, when the poor were kicked out of the center of the city in anticipation of the Belgian royal family's visit to Rio in 1922 (the first European royalty to set foot in Brazil since the Portuguese Crown arrived in 1808 when it fled the Napoleonic invasion), to the 1960s and the governorship of Carlos Lacerda. By taking this stance on the informal economy, Paes is only adding his own name to this infamous list of injustices.

And I wish it stopped there, but it doesn't. Paes, in his effort to "clean up" the city, is also cracking down on the little bars that dot the landscape, where you could sit down at a nice plastic table on the sidewalk in the evening and have a nice cold beer (in Rio, quality is determined more by coldness than by taste, a flawed system but one that has its logic based on the heat). It was a wonderful way to spend a night chilling out, and it wasn't like these little bars were occupying the sidewalks out of maliciousness - oftentimes, the "bar" itself was no more than 10 feet deep and 5 feet wide, meaning that they had to expand their business onto the sidewalk if they were to actually have any clients, and they only put tables on the sidewalk once neighboring businesses had closed for the day.

However, Paes has declared that these activities also must go as they are an eyesore on the landscape. Now, I actually lived above no fewer than four of these places, and while it got noisy, it was never so terrible that you couldn't sleep - certainly, the crowds below talking were less noisy than the idiots driving by honking their horns, or the delivery trucks that arrived at the grocery store across the street at 4 in the morning. Yes, the sidewalks would get crowded, and I understand why that would bother some, but it was never like you absolutely could not walk on the sidewalks when these places set up shop. In short, it was nowhere near a major inconvenience, and it afforded not only a great way for inexpensive leisure, but gave Rio a particular vibrance.

That vibrance does not fit within Paes's elitist vision, though, and he has cracked down. Upon walking through my old neighborhood, no fewer than 3 old bars had been closed, unable to remain open in the face of a policy that prejudiced the owners' livelihood over the principle of "aesthetics." The obvious conclusion is that this policy has shut down small businesses (which were a part of the formal sector, not random street vendors), leading to more people jobless and having to find work in an economy that isn't the most favorable right now. But that's not the end of the consequences, either. Many of these little bars provided people who weren't necessarily of means (which is a majority of Brazil) to be able to get together with friends over some inexpensive beers and have a good time. In Rio go to a "bar" like those we have in the U.S., you would end up paying double to triple the price of a bottle of beer that you paid on the street - the "bar scene" in Rio is very much a middle-class/hipster (yes, they have them everywhere) thing to do, and most Brazilians are not middle-class (nor hipsters). Thus, Paes's policies haven't just prejudiced the poor and small business owners in their means of earning income; they've also directly attacked their means of leisure.

As should be clear by this point, I'm fairly biased, but I'm still comfortable in saying that Rio was a much more depressing place upon my visit this time. Much of what had given it its cultural flair - cheap books and good food on the street, hanging out with friends and total strangers on the street and having a cold beer - is gone. This isn't to say, "oh, poor Rio - it's culture is now dead and stagnant," for that's far from the case, and no place has its culture bound up only on things like the informal economy. Nonetheless, a not-insignificant part of the city that I knew is gone (and I didn't even make it into the downtown area, where the informal economy was much stronger). Even walking along the beaches and through other neighborhoods, the streets had a ghostly, more subdued quality about them. Sure, the ocean was still beautiful to look at, as were the mountains. While there, I couldn't help but feeling outrage, frustration, and anger that such an elitist vision of Rio had been so (though not totally) successfully implemented. But mostly, I felt sadness: having seen the effects of Paes's policies in only 6 months, I left Rio feeling that the city hadn't become "marvelous;" rather, it had been stripped of part of what had made it so "marvelous" in the first place.

China's Efforts to Impose "Modernity" on the Uighur city of Kashgar

Although it's outside of my usual area of expertise, I was fascinated and saddened by the story last week on China's efforts to destroy the old city in the Uighur city of Kashgar, in the western-most part of the country and a major stop for centuries as part of the silk road.

Over the next few years, city officials say, they will demolish at least 85 percent of this warren of picturesque, if run-down homes and shops. Many of its 13,000 families, Muslims from a Turkic ethnic group called the Uighurs (pronounced WEE-gurs), will be moved.

In its place will rise a new Old City, a mix of midrise apartments, plazas, alleys widened into avenues and reproductions of ancient Islamic architecture “to preserve the Uighur culture,” Kashgar’s vice mayor, Xu Jianrong, said in a phone interview.

I'm not an expert in planning, but I fail to see how destroying centuries-old homes is any means to "preserve" a culture. But the Chinese government's project is proving far more damaging than a simple assault on the culture wrapped up in the buildings:

Hajji and his wife lost their life’s savings caring for a sick child, and the city’s payment to demolish their home will not cover rebuilding it. Their option is to move to a distant apartment, which will force them to close their shop, their only source of income.

“The house belongs to us,” said Hajji’s wife, who refused to give her name. “In this kind of house, many, many generations can live, one by one. But if we move to an apartment, every 50 or 70 years, that apartment is torn down again.

“This is the biggest problem in our lives. How can our children inherit an apartment?”

This really gets at the sinister nature of the project. It's not just destroying these people's homes in the name of "cultural preservation." It's also stripping them of their livelihood and the pride in family ownership of a home through generations.

The article calls the government's explanations "befuddling." The main argument is that the Chinese government claims the homes are "unsafe" in the event of an earthquake, and that it will build stronger apartments based on the Uighur architectural style. Now this may be true. However, it's worth remembering last year's earthquake in May, in which government-constructed schools collapsed easily, killing thousands of students. If the same government effort goes into these apartment houses as it went into that schools, it seems the Uighurs homes (which have survived centuries already, presumably including making it through earthquakes) may not any less safe than newly constructed buildings. That doesn't mean it will be the same effort - the buildings very well may be an improvement in terms of structural safety, and there will be modern conveniences like plumbing and garbage collection (something the article points out is lacking in the old city as it stands). Additionally, the government no doubt probably hopes that the destruction of the Uighur old city, with its close quarters and familiarity among neighbors and residents, will reduce the Uighur separatist movement's ability to promote its message, too.

Still, at the end of the day, destroying 85% of an area rich in a minority culture and history, against the wishes of many of that minority's citizens, all in the name of "modernity," strikes me as a truly sad tale for those who are being displaced.