Brazilian favelas have a huge, untapped potential

At the end of the 19th century, the Brazilian Army attacked a group of marginalized people who gathered around the messianic community of Canudos, in the countryside of Bahia state in the Northeast. They were near the slopes of Morro da Favela, a hill named after a common plant in the region, the fava (favela is a kind of diminutive).

Canudos grew so much that it became the third-largest city in Bahia. It bothered the government — which feared a backcountry revolt — and the economic elite — which lost employees who departed to the “promised land.”

The state recruited soldiers to destroy Canudos with an attractive reward: if they were victorious, they would gain land in the then-Brazilian capital, Rio de Janeiro. More than 25,000 people went on to be killed in the Canudos War (roughly 20,000 civilians and 5,000 soldiers).

But the government did not keep its promise of giving soldiers land, and so Canudos war veteran soldiers invaded Morro da Providência, in downtown Rio, and set up their shacks. It was the first known Brazilian favela, named after the hill near Canudos. The name soon became synonymous with low-income housing complexes with poor infrastructure.

The biggest favelas in Brazil are in the big urban centers. Their expansion was fueled over the last century mainly by the migration of families fleeing drought and lack of economic prospects in Brazil’s poorest regions, by descendants of slaves, and other marginalized people.

Favelas extend over areas with low economic value and little real estate speculation. In Rio de Janeiro, many are concentrated on steep hills — often difficult to access...