The West Zone of Rio de Janeiro as an Axis of Urban Expansion for Social Interest Housing: Considerations from the ‘Minha Casa Minha Vida’ Program in Senador Camará

Abstract

This paper analyzes the participation of the Rio de Janeiro’s City Hall in the increment of the historical pattern of social production of the urban space, characterized by its peripheral and rarefied form of urbanity. To this end, it discusses the case of the Minha Casa Minha VidaProgram (PMCMV) in the Senador Camará neighborhood, in Rio’s West Zone. The paper shows how the PMCMV reiterates characteristics of an urbanization process historically marked by socio-spatial segregation and reaffirms socio-spatial disparities, instead of being an important vector for the qualification of precarious areas and the promotion of a more egalitarian model of territorial occupation.