Aerial view of Paraísopolis favela in São Paulo, Brazil, showing dense red-brick homes directly beside a luxury high-rise tower with curved balconies and a private swimming pool, starkly illustrating urban inequality.

The "most famous photo" of inequality in Brazil: Paraisopolis, São Paulo. 

Brazil is undoubtedly one of the most fascinating countries on the planet. 
For starters, it's huge: Over 211 million people and the fifth biggest country by area. It's diverse: the racial makeup of the average Brazilian ranges from European to African to Indigenous to Asian (São Paulo for example has the world's largest Japanese population outside of Japan). It's got incredible cultural, religious, and culinary heritage that are both traditional and new. 
 It's instantly recognizable: the Amazon rainforest, the beaches, the Carnival are all here, and they are truly larger than life. Better than those, though, is the warmth and welcoming of Brazilian people. In most countries, this might be said as a platitude without really meaning it, but in Brazil it is absolutely true. The people are really incredible.  
Lastly, and most distressingly, Brazilian society is very unequal. 
It's the democratic country with the highest concentration of income in the top 1 per cent. Millions of people live in slums in plain sight of affluent mansions and beaches, or are forgotten altogether. Crime and corruption exist side by side with law and order, and journalists, politicians, and activists are killed defending human and environmental rights. And the problem of inequality in Brazil is getting worse
Navigate to specific city pages: São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro.
slums and hotels at sunset, Copacabana Beach, Rio de Janeiro Brazil.

The favela of Cantagalo overlooks some of the highest price real estate in Brazil, in Rio de Janeiro's famous south zone.

Aerial image showing a stark contrast between a massive open-pit mine with red and gray earth tones on the left, and a dense suburban neighborhood with houses and greenery on the right in Nova Lima, Minas Gerais.

Open pit mining next to the town of Nova Lima in Minas Gerais. Several dam failures in the province have released tons of toxic mud into river systems and killed hundreds. 

Aerial view of Manaus where a rainstorm moves across the boundary between the lush Amazon rainforest on the left and the urban cityscape on the right, highlighting deforestation.

A rainstorm in Manaus moves over the boundary between the Amazon rainforest and the city. Extreme deforestation has rang alarm bells that one of the world's "lungs" may be collapsing.

In the early 2000s the story in Brazil was mixed. Much like in other parts of the world, the middle class shrank as production and technical jobs moved offshore (mainly to Asia) and processes became automated. This resulted in gains for the poorest and for the rich, but a relative sinking of the middle class, a broad trend not dissimilar to the USA. This actually resulted in Brazil's Gini coefficient dropping during the period 2000-2015. 
However, a financial crisis brought about by low commodity prices (Brazil's economy being dependent on commodities such as oil, soy, and metals) and a political crisis brought about by corruption scandals (resulting in the impeachment of then-President Dilma Rousseff) destroyed Brazil's once vibrant economy. The rebound since then has been largely unequal, with the top 1% seeing a 10% rise in income after the crisis ended, as compared with the poorest people, who suffered a drop of over 17%. This has sent Brazilian inequality measures to their highest levels in a decade. 
The story of the future is hardly yet written, but ominous signs appeared in 2018 when Jair Bolsonaro was elected on a platform of neoliberal economics, resource extractivism, and populist appeals. The COVID-19 crisis gripped Brazil under his watch, with high death tolls and a "hands-off approach" from the Presidency that was widely condemned as disproportionately affecting poor communities. Far from being a virus that was a "great leveler", it was more like a dire dystopia of those with "access"...to health care, jobs, and services...and those without. Mass casualties in Manaus because of a lack of available oxygen cylinders is a good example of this. I remember hearing thousands of people banging pots and pans in Rio de Janeiro - yelling "Fora Bolsonaro!" (out with Bolsonaro!) in response to what was perceived as corruption and a poor response to the crisis. Although Bolsonaro did implement a social grant that augmented the original "Bolsa Familia" grant, providing a lifeline to millions struggling under the economic strain of Covid lockdowns, it was marred by allegations of political vote-finding and quickly ended, not without a transfer, however, of over R$322 billion
When Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (Lula) won the Presidential election in 2022, there was a precarious moment where Brazil's democracy seemed to be on the brink. Supporters of Bolsonaro briefly broke into and occupied the parliament house in Brasilia. A supposed coup and assassination plot against Lula was uncovered. But persistent protests, the rule of law, and several intrepid individuals within the military and courts prevented a return to military rule. Today, Brazil is a mixed bag - an economy that is growing but perhaps not fast enough, political leadership that is waning in popularity, but a strong civil society and vibrant culture, and renewed attention to Indigenous rights and the environment that is somehow, against many headwinds, thriving.
Thousands of Indigenous people march down a wide avenue in Brasília toward the National Congress during the Free Earth Camp protest, with government buildings in the background.

Indigenous people from across Brazil march to the National  Congress building, in Brasilia. Over 7,000 people came to this year’s Acampamento Terra Livre (ATL - “Free Earth Camp”), the largest mobilization of indigenous people in Brazil, with the stated aims to “promote good living, reforest minds and indigenize politics”. The ATL spawned the Articulation of Indigenous Peoples of Brazil (APIB), a bottom-up organization which brings together regional Indigenous organizations in solidarity, with the goals of articulating Indigenous demands, strengthening the unity of the people, and mobilizing against threats and aggressions against Indigenous rights. 

One of the main axes of resistance by the Indigenous community is to defend the right to demarcate their traditional lands, currently a contested topic being decided in Brazilian courts. The “Marco Temporal”, or decision in which Indigenous people will only have the right to claim land in which they occupied at the moment of the constitution coming into force (Oct 5, 1988), is highly disputed by APIB and virtually every Indigenous group. Ruralist and agro-business interests however, including the President and his policies, have lobbied hard to support the measure, which would strip Indigenous groups of the right to campaign to legally repossess lands that were taken from them pre-1988. 

Overhead view of a large crowd gathered in São Paulo’s Cracolândia, an open-air drug zone surrounded by apartment buildings and trees.

"Cracolândia" is an open-air drug zone in São Paulo, tolerated and even somewhat "managed" by the city government. The thinking is to provide a zone for the use of drugs near the city's main train station, with police stationed at every exit to contain the sprawl. Cracolândia moves around, however, popping up on different streets, spilling into adjacent neighborhoods, and reminding Paulistas that this megacity still has series challenges to tackle. 

a cemetery in Manaus with dense burial plots surrounded by forest .

Huge new sections of the cemetery in Manaus were opened during COVID to handle the influx of people dying from the virus. Manaus briefly entered the world news cycle as a horror story unfolded in January 2021, when health services ran out of oxygen, leading dozens of people to essentially suffocate to death. The health system's failure was seen as a result of then-President Jair Bolsanaro's refusal to take COVID seriously. 

a fire-damaged vacant lot surrounded by colorful graffiti-covered buildings in São Paulo.

This empty lot is where a fire broke out, causing a 24-story building to collapse in São Paulo in 2018. Inside were up to 428 people living in a "squat", a type of illegal encampment inside abandoned buildings. Housing is at a shortage in this megacity, forcing residents who don't want to live in the periphery of the city to resort to dangerous and unsafe living conditions such as these. At last count, 49 people were still missing. 

Wide aerial view of Ceilândia, outside Brasília, with a clear central avenue dividing dense residential neighborhoods under a dramatic sky.

Ceilândia, outside of Brasília. 

When Brasilia was built in the in the late 1950s, the modernist planned capital of Brazil required tens of thousands of laborers. However, when the city officially opened in 1960, this "exemplary city" had a problem. These laborers did not fit the image of an intentional, orderly and white city that the military dictatorship envisioned as their capital. 

Beginning in the late 1960s, upwards of 80,000 people were persuaded to move, some of them forcibly, to a new district approximately 10km from the center of Brasilia. The state company responsible for this move was known as Campanha de Erradicação das Invasões (Company for the Eradication of Invaders), or CEI...which led the residents to coin the new district "Ceilândia". 

Today, it’s the largest district in the Federal District region, many of them from the northeast, black, and distinctly removed from the centers of commerce and power many kilometers away. Despite this, Ceilândia is a powerhouse of culture, especially hip hop. “This city is a great mother”, local rapper Japão told me. “Our slang words are very confused. Why? Because we always mixed them up. This is the Carioca way, understood with the slang of the Northeasterner, who came to build Brasília.”

Reflection of Rio’s Morro da Providência favela in the glass windows of a modern office tower, juxtaposing historical and contemporary urban landscapes.

The very first favela established in Rio is called the Morro de Providência, shown here reflected in the façade of an office tower.  It was a refuge for returning black soldiers, who named it after an irritating bush found in the northeast of the country - the favela. Today, favelas are proudly part of the city’s landscape, centers of culture and innovation. However, as the city is dynamically growing, with developments going up and tourists beginning to pour back into the city’s famous south zone, many favela residents feel abandoned by the government, and all but completely shut out of the city’s privileged areas. 

Aerial view of Salvador, Brazil, showing a dense favela foreground curving around Dique do Tororó lake with orixá statues in the water, backed by high-rise buildings and the Fonte Nova stadium in the distance under a bright sky.

Orixas in Salvador, Brazil. 

Afro-Brazilian religions have millions of followers in Brazil, with orixas (or deities) playing an important connective role between the spiritual and the corporal world. In the center of Salvador, the most important city to Afro-Brazilian culture and history, these orixas appear to float on top of the water, surrounded by favelas on the south and east and the World Cup soccer stadium to the north. Afro-Brazilian religions such as Candomblé and Umbanda are experiencing a sharp rise in attacks by evangelical Christian organizations, spurred on by a climate of rising nationalism and right-wing ideologies. These groups are emboldened by President Bolsonaro and his government’s statements and policies, adding to the climate of fear and racism experienced by Black and northeastern people throughout the country. 

Data from the Ministry of Women, Family and Human Rights (MMFDH) indicate that in 2021 alone there were 586 complaints of religious intolerance, which is equivalent to an increase of about 141% compared to 2020, when there were 243. “Christian, neo-Pentecostal denominations need to have a demon, need to have  an enemy to fight.”, writes Pai Jorge, the general coordinator of the Amazon Articulation of Traditional Peoples and Communities of Terreiro de Matriz Africana (Aratrama). “What Brazil is experiencing today is a declared war with a religious background, and Bolsonaro as President of the Republic is the exponent of this religious war.” 

Rocinha favela in Rio, densely packed against green hillside homes.

Rocinha, one of Rio's densest and most dangerous favelas, has spread over the top of the mountain and down into prosperous Leblón. 

São Paulo favela with orange rooftops clustered behind tall apartment towers.

Favela houses glow orange in the sun during a break in the clouds over São Paulo.

Aerial view of the Brumadinho region in Brazil where a mining dam collapsed in 2019, showing homes nestled beside extraction sites and lush forest, highlighting environmental and human impact.

In January 2019 a wall of mud swept down the valley below a retaining dam near the town of Brumadinho, killing over 260 people. The dam was owned by Vale, the largest company in Latin America and one of the largest mining companies in the world.

Far from being an isolated event, this happened just three years after another dam burst only 50km away in Mariana, then considered Brazil’s worst environmental disaster, and currently being contested in the UK in the largest class-action suit ever to take place in that country. Vale, to this day, continues to operate dams which are unreliable, and continues to mine an area which already suffers from high rates of illnesses and environmental degradation. 

Aerial photograph of Tejuco, Brazil, where houses lie in close proximity to gold mines after environmental disaster

Mining towns like Tejuco have actually increased their dependence on mining companies since the Brumadinho and Mariana dam failures. The environmental and economic catastrophe from living next to gold mines means that they are now bound in a type of symbiosis of survival.  

an image of wooden crosses on a hillside memorializing victims of the Brumadinho dam collapse.

The wall of mud from the Brumadinho dam break swept over a guesthouse located less than a kilometer downstream, which memorialized the event with a series of crosses, one for each guest who died, on the hillside just above the path of the mud. 

Aerial view of Santa Marta favela in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, built on a steep hillside surrounded by tropical forest, with dense informal housing cascading down the slope.

Santa Marta, Rio de Janeiro. One of the more "famous" favelas, Santa Marta even hosted a music video for Michael Jackson (They Don't Really Care About Us, 1996). Now, the unfinished housing projects, the ailing tramway, and the feeble drainage system are examples in which infrastructure collapses without state assistance. The local neighborhood association, the office within the favela which liaises with the city government, is seen as corrupt and inefficient. The police, widely loathed and mistrusted, rarely enter the favela and then only to “shoot to kill”. It's impossible to enter with a camera (or drone) without the approval of the drug gangs. The resulting vacuum has left the community to fend for itself, but also created a vibrant, fiercely proud, and cohesive culture of creativity.  

“Maintenance of the community is directly linked to political power and political will", Sheila Maria Gonçalves de Souza told me, a community leader inside Santa Marta. "And why can’t we do maintenance? Because most of that decision making is top-down. Because of that, what happens? We don’t participate in these decision-making processes, so we do not reap the result of these decision-making processes.”

Dramatic sunset aerial of Morro do Papagaio favela in Belo Horizonte, Brazil, with golden light spilling over the hillside community as it merges into the formal cityscape beyond.

Sunset over the hills including the favela Morro de Papagaio in Belo Horizonte. 

Even the term favela itself is being reclaimed by residents, and especially the younger generation, who use the term “favelado/favelada” proudly. The narrative of favelas as vital and unique (not to mention important) centers of cultural production and innovation is one  that local leaders and entrepreneurs are quick to highlight. 

“People in positions of social risk do what we call ‘entrepreneurship out of necessity’”, explains Tatiana Silva, 
co-Founder of Fa.Vela, a startup which began in a favela in Belo Horizonte. 

Aerial view of São Paulo showing high-rise residential buildings interspersed with a large favela.

São Paulo, Brazil. 

Lightning strikes near towers in Tatuapé, São Paulo, during a dramatic stormy sky.

Tatuapé, São Paulo.

Aerial image of the border between affluent Morumbi and the sprawling favela of Paraisópolis in São Paulo.

Morumbi next to Paraisopolis, São Paulo.

Iconic spiral-staircase apartment towers rise above the dense rooftops of São Paulo’s urban inequality.

Three iconic apartment buildings at the center of Brazilian inequality in São Paulo.

Vertigo-inducing downward aerial of Occupy 9 de Julho housing movement in central São Paulo, showing a concrete tower, rooftop vegetation, a basketball court, and the dense city below.

The Occupy 9 do Julho (9th of July), perhaps one of the most famous Occupy movements in the city of São Paulo, is located in one of the most expensive neighborhoods near the city center, and hosts around 124 families since 2016. Housing is at a premium in highly centralized São Paulo, and many people need to travel on overburdened public transit hours each way from the peripheral parts of the city to work. 

The majority of residents are not asking for free places or shelters,  but rather the right to the city: fair conditions to finance a house,  a fair monthly pay and rent that a worker can afford, and to  have more equal access to valuable places of the city. With a small textile cooperative, a community garden and  open weekly organic lunches every Sunday, MSTC (Movimento Sem-Teto do Centro, or Homeless Movement of the City Center)  works to create dialogues with different movements, collectives, academic groups and society in general. Carmen Silva, the main leader, is now running for the São Paulo  
state parliament.

Aerial view of a modern glass building in São Paulo at night, juxtaposed with a neighboring structure covered in vertical 'pichação' graffiti, symbolizing protest culture.

An Occupied building in São Paulo, just off the famous Avenida Paulista. The graffiti on the outside of the building is a typical style  of “pixação”, which is a unique form of highly stylized protest/symbolic writing found all over the city. Pixação is especially prevalent and popular in São Paulo and used for diverse reasons: as a type  
of calling card, communication, or even protest art. Pixadores use their skill, climbing prowess, and daring to reach the highest and  most dangerous locations in a city famous for its horizon full  
of tall buildings. 

Downward view from the top of an occupied building in central São Paulo showing two men sitting on a ledge above a lit courtyard full of people celebrating below.

Gilmar and Adysson, friends living in the Occupy Mauá in central São Paulo, look down at the festivities for the 15th anniversary of the Occupy’s founding. The building, which used to be a hotel, fell into disrepair and was abandoned after the original owner died, leaving the family with an unrecoverable debt in unpaid city taxes. Today, it is one of the most successful occupies in the city, with over 200 families (and over 1,000 people) living in an intentional, organized community inside its walls. 

Occupies are part of a series of vital social movements which work to provide safe, dignified housing in a city that lacks 360,000 houses and where many people take hours to commute from the peripheral areas. In Mauá, the spirit of resistance and political lineage is strong, with a large mural depicting Maria Carolina de Jesus in the entrance (a famous resident of the periphery, a black woman who wrote eloquently about her experience in the favela in mid-20th century São Paulo) and memorials to the occupation itself and to Marielle Franco. All the leaders here are Black, and the majority are women. There is a strong connection with the arts, and in particular, graffiti, and the interior of the space is covered in memorials, political slogans, and other artwork. 

Overhead aerial showing informal stilt homes extending into the water in Santos, next to a road and vegetation.

The largest port in Latin America, Santos, is surrounded by informal homes on stilts extending out over the water called palafitas. 

Oblique view of fishermen walking along a long, narrow rail bridge stretching across brown water in Santos, with mountains in the distance.

Fishermen in Santos walk out almost a kilometer on this rail bridge to make their catch. 

Top-down aerial showing a peninsula with the Jurujuba Yacht Club and an adjacent fishing colony across a narrow channel in Guanabara Bay, surrounded by boats.

The Jurujuba Yacht Club offers accommodation and berthing slips for sailors in its strategic location in Guanabara Bay. Next to it, across a narrow fence, sits a traditional fishing colony. 

Direct aerial view of the Port of Santos showing tightly packed car lots on one side and a dense informal settlement on the other, split by a fence.

The Port of Santos, the largest in Latin America. 

Aerial image showing the stark boundary between São Paulo’s dense low-income housing with orange rooftops and the lush green forest of Jaraguá State Park.

The traditional lands of the Guaraní people, inside the city limits of São Paulo, is technically protected land in the form of both the Jaraguá aldeia and Jaraguá State Park. But the insatiable appetite of a city with 22 million people to grow and expand its low-cost housing means that there is constant pressure from developers, and also semi-legal low-income housing projects. The relationship between the environmentally protected areas (the park) and the Guaraní community is complicated by the fact that a large part of this historical and sacred land is off-limits to them. 

The community itself is proscribed to 8 square hectares, with little space to farm and engage with the forest in a traditional way. New communities that have been established since the park’s inception, are at risk of being seized dependent on the outcomes of the Marco Temporal case working its way through the legal system (and a major driver of the ATL event and the APIB movement). This isn’t limited to Jaraguá - the Guaraní inhabit the most densely populated section of the country, a forest which has been decimated by deforestation and urbanization. When asked if he saw the encroachment by favelas onto park land as a fundamentally antagonistic relationship, Daví, one of the leaders of the Jaraguá community, responded “no”. The Guaraní see both communities as participants striving against the state in the quest for decency and good living.

Clear aerial division between orderly, spacious formal housing with greenery and dense informal settlement, split by a thin strip of forest in Guarujá.

Separation in Guarujá, in São Paulo state. 

Wide aerial showing the remains of Vila Autódromo beside the sprawling 2016 Rio Olympics complex, with small homes surrounded by large-scale infrastructure and vacant land.

Vila Autódromo, at the site of the 2016 Rio Olympics. 

“Vila Autódromo has become the symbol of the price paid by some Cariocas for the celebration of the Olympic Games in the city” wrote Maria Martin in 2016, about the same time as backhoes were demolishing the last of the remaining houses from the original community of over 3000 residents. 

Aerial views of Rio de Janeiro showing stark contrasts between colorful Olympic housing developments and adjacent informal settlements along the lagoon.

Apartment buildings constructed for the 2016 Olympics sit colorfully alongside the Lagoa da Tijuca, opposite a sprawling favela.

Aerial views of Rio de Janeiro showing stark contrasts between colorful Olympic housing developments and adjacent informal settlements along the lagoon.

Accusations of corruption and nepotism have dogged Rio developers for years, and the 2014 World Cup and 2016 Olympics were at the top of the list for land grabs and power plays. Multiple prominent politicians have been jailed or accused of corruption in the past few years, including the Mayor, in December 2020. 

Arpoador and Copacabana beach at sunset

Copacabana beach at sunset. 

densely packed informal housing next to high-rises in Salvador.

Differences in housing in Salvador, Brazil.

A man walks along Copacabana Beach in Rio de Janeiro carrying a massive load of crushed aluminum cans for recycling, framed by beachfront buildings and mosaic sidewalks.

An informal recycler carrying aluminum cans on Copacabana Beach, Rio de Janeiro.

Aerial view of a quilombo community nestled in dense forest between luxury apartments and a rocky cliff face in Rio's Lagoa neighborhood, symbolizing survival and resistance.

A quilombo, or autonomous community of free slaves, still exists amongst the opulence of the Lagoa neighborhood in Rio's south zone.

Sacopã and Peixoto neighborhoods near Copacabana Beach in Rio de Janeiro

The Sacopá and Peixoto neighborhoods, near Copacabana Beach.

the location of the historic Sacopã Quilombo surrounded by high-rises in Rio de Janeiro.

The Sacopá Quilombo is to the right in the photo (blue tarps).

Bird’s-eye view of Moinho favela, São Paulo’s last central favela, compressed between train tracks and high-rise commercial buildings, showing extreme urban density.

The Moinho favela is the last favela inside the central district in São Paulo. It sits sandwiched between two train tracks. 

Salvador’s dense vertical inequality

Salvador, Brazil. 

Santos’ gated community next to informal housing

Santos, Brazil.

Rio de Janeiro's Itanhangá Golf Estate adjacent to lower-income housing.

Itanhangá Golf Estate, Rio de Janeiro.

Aerial view of Lapa’s iconic arches and financial district in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

Lapa, Rio de Janeiro. 

Urban sprawl of Belo Horizonte built along curved roads in hilly terrain.

Belo Horizonte is famous for its "beautiful horizon", due to the many rolling hills surrounding this mining town. 

Fishing colony overshadowed by high-rise condos in Salvador, Brazil.

A traditional fishing colony sits underneath skyscrapers in Salvador, on Brazil's northeast coast. 

Dense favela pressed against high-rise apartments in Copacabana, Rio de Janeiro, showing spatial inequality.

Copacabana, Rio de Janeiro.

Divided urban fabric in Salvador, Bahia, where informal settlements border a modern gated community on a red dirt escarpment.

Salvador, Bahia.

A Porsche dealership in Belo Horizonte sits directly next to a favela, symbolizing extreme economic contrasts.

A Porsche dealership next to a favela, Belo Horizonte.

Overhead view of Santa Marta favela in Rio de Janeiro, densely packed on a forested hillside next to formal neighborhoods.

The famous Santa Marta favela, Rio de Janeiro. 

Leme Beach in Rio de Janeiro where high-rise beachfront apartments border favela settlements on the forested hill above.

Leme Beach is a lively mix of favela and affluence, that would probably not work in any other city in the world. Here, it's normal - and by and large, people get along.

Aerial view of Vidigal favela surrounding a luxury Sheraton hotel between twin coastal peaks in Rio de Janeiro, near Rocinha.

Morro de Vidigal is a historic favela which encircles the luxury Sheraton Resort hotel like a set of pincers. On the opposite side of this mountain is the huge favela of Rocinha. 

Rocinha, one of Latin America's largest favelas, sprawling up a steep mountainside with Rio’s affluent South Zone in the distance.

Rocinha, perhaps Latin America's most famous favela, sits on a steep mountainside with Rio's famous south zone in the background. 

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