Volume 5 issue 1 february 2018
Securitising Street Populations: Investment-led Growth in Rio de Janeiro and Bogotá
JOHANNA CORTES-NIETO & MONIZA RIZZINI ANSARI
|
Following global trends, many Latin American cities have embraced urban governance models that emphasise real estate development as a means to absorb surplus capital and trigger market-led growth. As the value of real estate investment is connected to its spatial surroundings, urban renewal plans, the upgrading of historic city centres and tighter surveillance and control of urban space have become key components of urban
governance. Not only does urban planning and management of Latin American cities pander to private interests, this type of governing and its policies have a significant impact on the cities social make up. Public spaces are increasingly policed and securitised. Criminal law and other punitive policies have played crucial roles in the removal of ‘undesirables’ (beggars, drug users, homeless and street populations, etc.) from the areas of economic interest. Through the cases of Bogotá and Rio de Janeiro, this paper illustrates the growing of coercive and punitive urban policies that deal with the homelessness as the phenomenon which has escalated since the early 1990s. It is claimed that ‘clearing out’ of certain parts of these cities is not only achieved by means of deterrence, but more importantly, the arbitrary incarceration and physical extermination of these populations carried out by the police, military and para-military forces. The debates on criminalisation of poverty in the global south reveal how urban governance, state violence and financialisation are deeply connected. |