when you leave the International Airport
of Rio de Janeiro and head towards the
south of the city which is where all the
beaches are you pass a sprawling
informal settlement called muddy it's
one of hundreds of neglected shanty
towns like this in Rio it goes on for
miles but when you pass by there today
all you see is this wall
look at this map of Rio here's the part
that you probably know it's the South
Zone it's where all the iconic beaches
are moiré is in Rio's North Zone which
is where most of the city's poor live a
Bahia Pushpa either Segundo ad era
property ba house song for aim and each
to Kasaba here at one point we to the
other Africa Pradesh massage is signed
report do galleon even seated asana soon
know conceived on via a highly dodgy
diacid eyes they don't have sewage
systems they don't have a housing rights
they don't have anything but you know
the city is really concerned about how
loud the cars are because they're
worried about you know the ears of the
poor people that don't have food in
their stomach the city just installed a
big new school in this community a few
months ago you'll note that when we get
to this part of the highway the wall
becomes totally transparent giving us a
perfect view of the shiny school every
time international attention comes to
Rio the city scrambles to build up
infrastructure around tourism for
visitors to see that it's this amazing
city the problem is the visitors will
come and they go but the people of Rio
are here to stay and they're frustrated
they're frustrated that their
governments spend so much money to build
up certain parts of the city and
completely neglect others the Olympics
is no different in this case in fact
it's probably the biggest excuse Rio has
to pour tons of money into making the
city look good this is padishah she
rides the buses here in Rio and has
noticed a major change in the bus routes
recently it used to be a line collect
homeless within the North Zone to call
me value where we have the price and
this line was English but that is here
showing me a few examples of the 11 bus
lines that were cut between the poor
North Zone and the touristy rich South
Zone all in preparation for the Olympics
it's now much harder for a resident of
the North Zone to get down to the
beaches of Ipanema or Copacabana
so what got the bus line if all of these
black people four people there food
people are there like no we have to
clean this and they always want to clean
but now they have a purpose they have a
deadline to do this if discriminatory
bus lines are bad here's work it's worse
so back to this map now here in the West
is a place called Baja ours are
pronounced like H in Portuguese this is
a new part of the city where a lot of
the Olympics action is happening it's
where the Olympics Park is going to be
built and because of this it's home to
what one real-estate publication is
calling a cosmopolitan awakening tons of
real estate investment and of course a
bunch of dramatic promotional videos to
go with it
this is one guy named Carlos Carvalho
he's a real estate developer and he
owned 64 million square feet in Baja
last year in a series of interviews with
big publications Carvalho sketched out
his dream for Baja his goal is to turn
this place into a new Rio a city for the
elite of good taste
noble housing not housing for the poor
this guy's the 12th richest person in
Brazil and he's got a ton of political
influence to make his dream happen
periods with Rio's mayor whose
reelection campaign he generously
donated to they're just you know looking
over plans for how they're gonna reshape
Baja but there's one big problem for
people like Carlos Carvalho and his
dream to make Baja a haven for the rich
her interest is in land value less poor
people you have in your land the greater
value you can give it to it they think
of the city as a place for you to invest
then not a place for the living over the
years little settlements of a few
hundred families have popped up in Baja
and usually workers unable to find
affordable housing and creating
communities of their own these places
have been around for decades and many of
them have gained legal status for their
property but to the luxury minded
developers of this new part of town
these informal settlements represent a
barrier to their plan so when the
Olympic Park was planned for this area
of Rio there wasn't much of a surprise
when the city came in with eminent
domain eviction orders telling these
communities that they would be moved to
public housing complexes usually far out
of sight of any international visitors
most communities left some happily
taking the money that the city gave them
some mounted in tents but failed
resistance but I visited one community
that didn't give up on the fight to keep
their homes wonderful ROG asalaam fear
that yes you know huge engineer la Sofia
much
yaaaas Vila autódromo was a community of
around 600 families near where the
Olympic Park is being built it's not on
the actual park property but it's in the
site of the park this is what it looks
like today people chose to go there
because there was no drug trafficking or
militia it was very safe very good sense
of community and your jobs and your
schools it's hard to know that when you
just visit the community but you kind of
get a sense of that by seeing the people
who are still resisting you know because
they're holding on to that memory and
they want to keep some of that alive
after years of fighting with the City
Hall only 20 families of the original
600 remain in this community
fierce protesting and a flurry of
international precedent the mayor to
finally concede saying that the 20
families could stay on condition that
the city would build them nicer looking
homes lest heaven forbid the
international community catch a glimpse
of the real Rio shimozawa luchi fuska
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through the long fight some of Vila
autódromo was able to stay but this is
rare most communities that receive
eviction orders no longer exist at least
seventy seven thousand two hundred
people have been removed from their
homes in Rio de Janeiro since 2009
that's according to government data and
much of this is to make way for
infrastructure and real estate projects
associated with the World Cup and the
Olympic Games so it's kind of a shame
because the Olympics ends up coming in
and kind of whitewashing areas and
creating and reframing them and you know
you lose a lot of the personalities of
course there have been numerous benefits
to the people of Rio thanks to the
Olympics investments new bus lines
revitalizations of all parts of the city
museums parks this stuff will make life
better in the city for sure but in the
end billions of public dollars that were
supposed to benefit the people ended up
bowing to the interests of a few people
with a lot of money and instead of
investing in the underserved Rio will
once again hide them from view