Flavie Halais takes us to the old port of Rio de Janeiro, where the city's first public-private partnership, Porto Maravilha, is recreating the neighbourhood for international consumption in time for the World Cup and Olympic Games, threatening the birthplace of samba and the life of the city's oldest favelas.
Flavie Halais reports on the efficacy of the new Police Pacification Units cleaning up the favelas of Rio de Janeiro, and asks why the city's authorities have chosen this time to step up the programme.
Witness' documentary People Before Profit portrays forced evictions around the world, expressing the trauma that citizens feel when their homes and possessions are violently taken from them.
A visit to the community that is challenging the Rio government's redevelopment plans for the Olympic Park site with its own People's Plan that promises to be more cost effective.
Alan Gilbert doesn't believe there is one, but if one must speak of a global urban agenda, he would point to local private sector lobbies as the common force driving similar agendas in cities around the world.
Flavie Halais (@flaviehalais) is a journalist, blogger and filmmaker in Montreal. She is currently conducting research on the impact of mega-events…
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The Global Urbanist is an online magazine reviewing urban affairs and urban development issues in cities throughout the developed and developing world.
Its readers are drawn from the urban policy and international development sectors, and include urban planners, officers in local, national or international government agencies, civil society leaders, and researchers.
