‘Informal Practices’ will be the central theme of Jaap Klaarenbeek’s lecture on the 18th. Various instances of informality will be showed, the ‘magnitude’ of informality in São Paulo and the way it effects the city’s urban life and space. During the lecture several types and modes of informality will be distinghuished, as well as the way in which these practices emerged in São Paulo’s urban landscape, and the forms in which they use the urban space. In his lecture Jaap will shed a light on the tensions between formal and informal and the complex typologies they produce, as well as the symmetries and asymmetries between formal and informal ‘worlds’ in São Paulo. Jaap Klaarenbeek is graduating on an investigation on the topic of informality in São Paulo.

1. Jaap Klaarenbeek (CCUC)
Informal São Paulo
Lecture 3: 18-02-09
19:30-20:30 Room C
PARALLEL WORLDS LECTURE SERIES 2009

2. Informal practices
Its use of, and the effect on, urban spaces
Setup:
-Theoretic background
- Layers of Informality
- Mapping Informal São Paulo
- Informal Practices
Inside the favela
Outside the favela

3. Informal Practices
Its use of, and the effect on, urban spaces

4. Informal Practices
Its use of, and the effect on, urban spaces

5. Informal Practices
Its use of, and the effect on, urban spaces

6. Informal Practices
Its use of, and the effect on, urban spaces

7. Informal Practices
Its use of, and the effect on, urban spaces

8. Informal Practices
Its use of, and the effect on, urban spaces

9. Characteristics of the Formal
1. Definitions
2. Categorizations
3. Distinctions
4. Relations

10. Formal - Informal
Some Complications in Western Philosophical thought
thought
1. Recurring problem: objects are conceptualized as stabile, bounded
and based through means of denial.
2. Tension to result in binary structure with a first term
(superior/positivity) and second term (inferior / negativity).
3. Result: a relation of opposition and exclusion – instead of similarity,
conformity and fusion between the two mode in the dualism.
Moreover: in this way of treating subjects, the story gets a normative
narrative of ‘developement’and ‘progress’.

11. Formal - Informal
Its use of, and the effect on, urban spaces
1. That the informal is inseparable from the formal
2. That the relation between formal and informal is
differently understood in different academic fields.
3. That the informal does not have a static definition.

12. The Slum / ‘Favela’
Embodiment of the ‘Informal City’

13. Formal contra Informal
Polarized dichotomy

14. Urban Context
Informal city growth
1. Informal Economy Informal Processes
2. Informal Politics & Social Relations Informal Production
3. Informally Built Environments Informal Use

15. Urban Context
Informal city growth
1. Informal Economy Informal Processes
2. Informal Politics & Social Relations Informal Production
3. Informally Built Environments Informal Use
Working Definitions

16. Informally Built Environments
Unclear Land-Ownership, Self-Management Construction, Building without Plans, Ad-hoc Problemsolving Architecture

17. Informally Built Environments
Unclear Land-Ownership, Self-Management Construction, Building without Plans, Ad-hoc Problemsolving Architecture

18. Informal Politics & Social Relations
Absence of Government, Self-Organized Initiatives, Relations of Trust

19. Informal Economy
Unregistered Jobs, No Tax Payment, Little Income Certainty, No Access to Social Safety Net, Unstable Working
Conditions. Informal Jobs both Inside and Outside of favelas

20. Urban Context
Informal city growth

21. - 11 mln inhabitants
-1.500 sqkm
- 870 sqkm urbanized
- 1/3 illegally occupied
- home to 2,5m inhabitants
- 1,9mln live in favelas
- more than 2000 favelas
- 65% favelas on protected land
- peripheral growth
- 130.000 roads
- 6 mln cars
- 60 km metro lines
- 26 km of cycle tracks (20 in parks)
- +/- 1.000 private helicopters
- 260 landing pads (compare NY:16)
Urban Context
Informal city growth

22. - 1900: Allotment of Chacara’s - 1970’s: Grileiros
- Organized groups invaded and allotted
Coffee boom & Skyrocketing expansion
- ‘Profit was a certainty’ land to raise financial profits.
- Uncoordinated informal expansion
Urban Context
‘A question of formal or informal has until recently never been much of a question.
Things just happened’.

23. Urban Context
‘the projects by the municipality carried out were always lagging far behind. There has
never been any planning, only ad-hoc problem solving. What they did was basically
sewing and stitching fragments of urban tissue’.

24. Population living in favelas:
- 11 mln inhabitants
- 1957: 8.500 shacks
-1.500 sqkm
-1972: 1,2%
- 870 sqkm urbanized
- 1997: 18,9%
- 1/3 illegally occupied
- home to 2,5mln inhabitants
- 1,9mln live in favelas
- more than 2000 favelas
- 65% favelas on protected land
- 130.000 roads
- 6 mln cars
- 60 km metro lines
- 26 km of cycle tracks (20 in parks)
- +/- 1.000 private helicopters
- 260 landing pads (compare NY:16)
Urban Context
In fact, the whole growth of the city has been uncontrolled.

25. Focus on Informal Settlements
Informal city growth
1. Favorable political climate (social federal government)
2. Normalized urban growth
3. Economical situation (energy autonomous, strong agriculture)
4. Strength of popular movements (democracy & rising income)

26. Focus on Informal Settlements
Unclear Land-Ownership, Self-Management Construction, Building without Plans, Ad-hoc Problemsolving Architecture

27. Focus on Informal Settlements
Also many of the residences of the elite are located on locations where it is forbidden to construct.

28. Focus on Informal Settlements
Collective actions are undertaken by elites to close streets. This has become a common phenomenon.

29. Focus on Informal Settlements
Changing Understanding
- Favela often understood as image of contra-modernity or a
phenomenon that is goes with the stage of ‘transitory-urbanism’, a
phase in the development of the city from a pre-modern to a modern
society.
In modernization times the favelas were commonly seen as
‘cancerous sores on the beautiful body of the city’.
‘It was assumed that the dwellers in precarious shacks were
precarious themselves, and that comparing their condition
with the surrounding opulence would turn them into angry
revolutionaries’.
‘Such was the nightmare/ fear of the Right and the daydream
of the Left.’.

30. Marginality Thesis
Marginiality Thesis:
The ‘Marginality Thesis’ holds that informal employment is concentrated
amongst marginalized populations, whether these be poor nations, deprived
localities and regions, the unemployed or illegal immigrants.
Refutation of the ‘Marginality Thesis’
- A multitude of studies reveals that the majority of informal employment is
conducted by formal businesses undertaking a portion of their trade on an off-
the-books basis;
- That those in formal employment undertake more informal employment
than those excluded from the formal sphere;
- And that lower-income areas conduct less informal employment than more
affluent localities.

32. Focus on Informal Settlements
Changing Understanding
- Favela often understood as image of contra-modernity or a
phenomenon that is goes with the stage of ‘transitory-urbanism’, a
phase in the development of the city from a pre-modern to a modern
society.
- Recent understanding that favela’s are not pre-modern nor
transitory. They are here to stay.
- They have to be understood as just another urban typology.
(just like: CBD, garden city, historical center, edge city, gated
enclave, etc)

33. ?
Focus on Informal Settlements
First problem: lack of information

34. Mapping the Informal City
Informal city growth

35. Mapping the Informal City

36. Mapping the Informal City
- Produced on the basis of Google Earth
- Common critique: Hardly based on locally gathered information

37. Informally Built Environments Informal Use
e
Informal Politics & Social Relations Informal Production
on
Informal Economy Informal Processes
s

38. habitation construction infrastructure
Informally Built Environments
Unclear Land-Ownership, Self-Management Construction, Building without Plans, Ad-hoc Problemsolving Architecture

39. Paraisópolis example:
- 64,16 of the housholds has fresh water
-21,66 has sewerage
- 18,5 has official electricity
- house value approx: R$30.000,-.
Informally Built Environments
Self-management construction: Building without plans, no end goal, limited
resources, no tools, consolidation, flexible.

40. Outside - Inside
- Whereas the street sides of the blocks are generally in well
constructed state and are connected to urban infrastructure, the
insides of the blocks are highly complex, accessibility difficult and
dangerous, and infrastructure precarious.
Informally Built Environments
Infrastructure: ‘Gatos’, not because economical
Factsheet: Infrastructure
necessity but pure lack - 51,1% has fresh water supply
- 16,8% has sewerage
- 18,5 %has official electricity connection
- average house value approximately R$30.000

41. Informally Built Environments
Public Space

42. Informally Built Environments
Reamins probelematic. Yet, consolidation seems to be assured already. Communities have their own regulations and registers.

43. Informal Politics & Social Relations
Absence of Public Authority solved by Self-Organization: Protection, Collective
initiatives (food, services, mail, telephone, infrastructure), Political voice, Planning(!).

44. Culture
- 95% never visited a cinema, theater or museum
- no house for culture, square or cinema
Informal Politics & Social Relations
Self-Organization: Protection, Political voice, Collective initiatives (food, services,
mail, telephone, infrastructure)

45. Paraisópolis Powerlifting
Gilson Clemente, owner of GCA Gym and GCA Powerlifting Coach has informally
developed a program to attract young Paraisópolis residents to powerlifting. The
program’s rationale is based on protecting young people at risk by:
1. engaging them in disciplined, goal oriented activity;
2. improving self-esteem through coach and team-mate
support, as well as competition reward;
3. introducing healthy lifestyle guidelines in a positive manner;
4. keeping them away from dangerous environments;
5. building a socially supportive network;
6. stimulating commitment to further formal education.
Informal Politics & Social Relations
Recent trend: ‘NGO-istation’ for increased access to financial support and political
voice. Bottom-up formalization. Authorities are reluctant in cooperation.

46. Informal Politics & Social Relations
Mutirão: Communal design and build projects. Adoptation by formal housing
programmes. Currently on hold.

47. Informal Economy
Self-sustaining markets in larger communities. As diverese as the formal economy.

48. Solicitors Office
Pizzeria &
Paraisópolis Church
Delivery
- 5.000 commercial establishments
- Strong ‘Shopkeepers Union’
LAN-house
Bakery
Supermarket CD shop
Furniture Shop
Building Materials
Bar
Pet Shop
Pharmacy
Clothing Restaurant
Construction Company
Informal Economy
Increasing coordination through assemblies, recognized by formal
companies. Yet, often not by the formal authorities.
Butcher
Hairdresser & Bar Video Rental & CD Shop
Nail Stylist Youth Fashion Clothing

49. Informal practices beyond the
borders of the ‘favela’
1. Occupations (buildings and spaces)
2. Comerce
3. Transport (goods & people)
(Temporary) occupation, Transformation,
Singular Events, Non-spatial transformations

50. Temporary Occupations
Informal Economy. Temporary but repetitive occupation. Street peddlers. Form integrated networks.

51. Continuous Occupation
Derilict spaces. Living, Camelôs, NGO’s (Coopamare),

52. Nilson Garrido Boxing Academy
Boxing school under derelict viaduct in Central São Paulo

53. Nilson Garrido Boxing Academy
Boxing school under derelict viaduct in Central São Paulo

54. Nilson Garrido Boxing Academy
Car tires as boxing bags, constructed a boxing ring from scrap material that he found and used other materials to make
rudimentary fitness machines/apparel

55. Nilson Garrido Boxing Academy
A German photographer that visited São Paulo, managed to win a sub-category of the World Press Photo in
2007 with a series of photos shot at the boxing school of Garrido

56. Nilson Garrido Boxing Academy
The many car passengers that passed under the viaduct were surprised by what they saw, while the thousands of cars that
passed over the viaduct didn’t note anything of what was going on.

57. Nilson Garrido Boxing Academy
Host of the international Mercosul boxing tournament 2007

58. Nilson Garrido Boxing Academy
The boxing academy became the starting point for a Phd
dissertation and broad discussions about the use of derelict urban
spaces in central São Paulo. Plans were made for several locations.

59. Continuous Occupation
20.000 empty buildings. Heavily organized. Enforcing rights to citizenship.

60. Temporary Transformations
Minhocão – The Great earthworm - Awarded as the verall winner of the ‘Most
ugly construction of São Paulo’

61. Temporary Transformations
Awarded as the verall winner of the ‘Most ugly construction of São Paulo’

62. Temporary Transformations
On Sundays opened for public as a 3,5km linear ‘park’.

63. Non-spatial Transformations
‘Beco do Grafite’ – Grafity Alley, Functions as open air atelier & art expo.

64. Jaap Klaarenbeek
Urban Detectives
+31(6)43757809
j.klaarenbeek@urbandetectives.com
Thanks for your attention!