HOW A PUBLIC HOUSING PROJECT BECAME AN UNPLANNED NEIGHBORHOOD: A FAVELA IN SOUTHERN BRAZIL SHOWS THE UPSIDE OF AN "INVASIVE" URBAN FORM--AND OFFERS LESSONS FOR U.S. HOUSING POLICY.

• Author: Beyer, Scott

FLORIANuPOLIS, SANTA CATARINA--in some ways, this large island on the Atlantic coast is the opposite of what people imagine when they think of Brazil. Sure, it has white sand beaches and clear waters, but it is largely free of the crime and chaos found in big Brazilian cities--a low-key vacation respite for the nation's elite. But having been invited here to speak at a conference and assigned a driver for the week, I ask him if there's another side of Florianopolis that doesn't show up on brochures. "Oh, do I have a neighborhood for you," says Alan Esteves, a rare English-speaking Brazilian cabbie.

Crossing the bridge from Florianopolis' charming historic centro, Esteves drives down the highway ramp and into a working-class barrio on the city's western edge. This, he tells me, is Monte Cristo.

It began, according to a local realty firm, as a collection of shacks, but in 2007 the authorities completed some government housing here. The program replicated the modern U.S. approach --rather than building high-rise public housing, it offered lowrise detached suburban-style units. The homes featured German roofs, aping a common vernacular in this Eurocentric part of Brazil. Locals would be allowed to buy the housing at subsidized rates, encouraging homeownership. Then something unplanned happened. In the urban planning lexicon, there's an acronym called ADUs, or "accessory dwelling units." This describes any units that owner-occupants add to their main ones, like a garage or a backyard granny flat. As unauthorized additions mushroomed, the housing in Monte Cristo quickly became the ADU concept on steroids, with so many new additions as to make the area unrecognizable.

Favela is a Portuguese word that translates to "shantytown," but that's a location-specific way to describe an urban form that exists worldwide. The United Nations defines "slum" housing as that which is unstable, overcrowded, and lacking in basic sanitation. Brazilian favelas are thought of as slums, although the definition can be more tenuous.

"Specifically in the Brazilian context," says urban planning journalist Gregory Scruggs, favelas are "a human settlement where there is not proper title to the housing stock."

Beyond that, favelas have a certain aesthetic, giving them a know-it-when-you-see-it quality. Their construction is usually a mix of cinder blocks, a soil and clay composite called daub, and "hollow bricks," that might better be called structural clay tiles.

When I...