Favela Serra Cora covers a hillside in Rio de Janeiro. Favela residents have been both threatened with clearance and ignored by the state. Favelas are slums, traditionally without electricity, water, and sewage services. The government is working to make improvements in these poor shantytowns. Melanie Stetson Freeman/Staff
Pretty in pink: Mario Tavares sits with daughter Maysa dos Santos Tavares as she looks at her princess book in favela Vidigal. This favela is gentrifying, causing rents to go up. Some 1.4 million of Rio’s 6 million residents live in favelas.
Street art: People walk past murals in Vidigal. The UPP, Units of Pacifying Police, have reportedly taken the neighborhood back from drug dealers, making it a safer place to live.
Young children play together in a narrow alleyway in Vidigal. Schools here are so overcrowded that children can only attend half a day. Melanie Stetson Freeman/Staff
Skyway: Lidia Daniel rides a gondola above a series of favelas named Complex Alemao. The tram, free to locals, connects the hillside community to the city. The government is improving the city in anticipation of the 2014 World Cup and 2016 Summer Olympics.
Doralice dos Santos Lines sits outside her temporary home in Providencia favela. One third of the buildings in her neighborhood – including her home – are being demolished for an Olympic stadium, a gondola and other 'improvements' by the government. Doralice has lived here for 71 years, her whole life. 'I don't want to die in public housing,' she says. 'My dream is not to leave here. What am I going to do. I'm following orders.' Melanie Stetson Freeman/Staff
Bruna Quaresma and her son, Joao Pedro, use a computer to play games and surf the internet in the Plaza of Knowledge community center built by the municipal government in Complex Alemao. Melanie Stetson Freeman/Staff
Children from favela Complex Alemao dance to an Xbox game in their new community center. This favela got a park, learning center, cinema and cable car as part of infrastructure improvements. Melanie Stetson Freeman/Staff
Community leader Mauricio Hora stands in a partially-demolished home in Providencia. Many residents worry that the city is unnecessarily clearing favela residents to better the city’s image as it prepares to play mega-event host, a move that could ultimately price favela residents out of their own communities. Melanie Stetson Freeman/Staff
Customers get their hair cut at a barbershop in Vidigal. Melanie Stetson Freeman/Staff
A teenage girl gets her hair blow dried at a hair salon in Vidigal. Melanie Stetson Freeman/Staff
Men carry sand up a hill for construction in Providencia. Melanie Stetson Freeman/Staff
On Patrol: A member of the UPP stands on a hill overlooking Complex Alemao. The UPP aim to reclaim favelas controlled by gangs of drug dealers or private militias. Intensive policing is coupled with improvements in social services.
Virtual street play: Young boys in the Providência favela play a video game outside a shop. Favelas began sprouting on the hillsides surrounding Rio in the late 19th century.
A shopkeeper at a small grocery chats with a customer in the Providencia favela. Melanie Stetson Freeman/Staff
A young boy takes a 'shower' with a hose beside a water tower in the Providencia favela. This favela is the oldest in the country, settled in 1897. Melanie Stetson Freeman/Staff
Satellite TV dishes line the tops of homes in Vidigal. Many favela residents have beautiful ocean views from their homes. Melanie Stetson Freeman/Staff
Tatiana Coelho (l.) and Rute Honrado, both from Portugal, chat with school children in the favela they now call home. Both women came to Brazil a year ago because of all the job opportunities and because of the weak economy back home. Coelho is an artist and Honrado a freelance architect. More and more foreigners, or expats, are moving into favelas. Melanie Stetson Freeman/Staff
The host of the 2014 World Cup and 2016 Summer Olympics faces many questions as it prepares for mega-events that are changing the way things are working in Rio de Janeiro.
Rio de Janeiro has changed hugely in just the last four years. Thanks to economic growth, investment, and pacification (in the notoriously violent slums known as favelas), the city is more integrated and vibrant than perhaps it has ever been. Cariocas— what Rio inhabitants are known as — of all classes are freer than they were before to move around and try out a gamut of cultural experiences, to invest in their dreams, and forge new partnerships.
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