After the rains, the shock

It didn´t take long for the new transportation projects in Rio´s port area to assume the habits of their elder siblings. With the intense rains of last week, the Via Binário filled with rainwater and sewage, completely blocking access to downtown. The city government admitted that their due diligence wasn´t happening but all

The Via Binário gests into the flow of Rio. OGlobo photo

the same slapped the private consortium that is handling the R$9 billion, 5 million square meter privatization of public space  with a R$100,000 fine. One wonders what will happen when all of the traffic that used to flow above ground through the port goes below sea level and people are trapped inside their cars in a tunnel. 

The Via Binário shouldn´t feel badly for failing its first test. The Metrô flooded. The SuperVia train tracks flooded. The region around the Maracanã flooded completely. The Avenida Brasil flooded. There was no way in or out of the city center where 60% of the city´s jobs are concentrated. The advice of the mayor: “stay home”. Of course, he could have said this earlier in the day before millions made their way across waterworld to never get to their places of employment. Again, how much good does an IMB smart system do when it can only sit by idly and watch a dumb city fall to pieces? In their propaganda video, there is a line that suggests that the smart city center can now predict heavy rains and

Imenjá makes an appearance in Rio´s Zona Norte

move to prevent disasters. It is amazing that only five people died. Hundred were robbed on Rio´s highways as bandidos made the most of stopped traffic. IBM: “The result is a visionary city, equipped to react, predict and plan for current and future events”.

During these wildly unpredictable rains, the Observatório das Metrópeles held a national seminar that dealt with the effects of the World Cup on all twelve host cities. The results were depressing. In every case, the World Cup is stimulating interventions that use public funding and military agents to commodify urban space, increase prices, and reduce access to sport while guaranteeing a suite of “executive privileges” for the cloistered and aloof global elite. Those who were present at the World Cup draw on the Bahian coast witnessed the FIFA president shutting around with a 50 car motorcade. Brazilian officials use the phrase “differentiated treatment” without a hint of irony, as if it were a defining characteristic of a democratic society. For this and for other reasons, the National Articulation of the Popular Committees of the World Cup nominated FIFA as the worst corporation in the world. While there is stiff competition from Gasprom, the campaign is picking up steam.

Three workers have died building the World Cup stadium in Manaus, one fewer than the number of games that will be played there. I wonder how many minutes of silence Herr Blatter will have for them before each of the games? If the ten seconds he allowed for Nelson Mandela is any indication, we may have already been silent for long enough.

Assuming that the stadium is built without more human sacrifice, the four games in Manaus mean that eight teams will play there, 25% of the total field of 32. However, there was a 100% chance that the USA would end up in the Amazon. Given that the USA sends more fans than any other country to the WC, that there are direct flights to Manaus from Atlanta and Miami, and a penchant for eco-tourism...bring the sun-screen, forged notions of Fair Play and bug spray!

Staying with football, we have no idea what the Brazilian first and second divisions will look like for 2014, more than a week after the final games of the tournament. Three teams are relegated from Serie A: Vasco, Ponte Preta and Náutico. However, Portuguesa from São Paulo used a substitute who was in some kind of legal limbo with 16 minutes remaining in the second half of the last game of the year. They tied the game and kept their heads above the relegation line. The punishment for an illegal player is the points that were won in the game + 3. If Portuguesa were to be punished with a four point deduction, Fluminense would be saved from relegation. My money is on Fluminense to be saved from a terrible year in which they went from Brazilian champions to relegation. Flamengo is also facing the same situation as Portuguesa and could face relegation if the sporting tribunal in Rio rules against them. My bet is that the size of the angry crowds outside of the building will encourage jurisprudence to go with the masses. However, if the vote goes for Flamengo, it must surely go against Fluminense. I am changing my bet. I bet that nothing will ever be resolved in Brazilian football as long as the CBF continues along without a massive institutional overhaul. The rest is just a bunch of guys in shorts.

And to get the week off to a flying start, over the weekend the road in front of the Maracanã was closed so that work could get started on a pedestrian overpass that will connect the stadium to the Quinta da Boa Vista. Last night (Sunday), perhaps making use of the fact that no media could get near because of the closed roads, the Rio Military Police shock brigade moved against an occupation of buildings undertaken by members of the Aldeia Maracanã. The terrorism that the state has manifested against a peaceful occupation of indigenous space is a perfect encapsulation of the creative dialogue that has defined the hosting of the 2014 World Cup. 

something for the weekend calumet

1) There is no way to separate the social and cultural phenomenon of sports mega-events, the production of elite sport and the consumption of spectacle, from the circulation and accumulation of four types of capital: political, symbolic, cultural and economic.

2) Sport is increasingly used as a mechanism for the accumulation of all these forms of capital because it is easily detached from the politics of urban life. The combined actions of government, media, finance capital and mega-event rights holders work to differentiate the social and economic costs of mega-events from the provision of housing, transportation, education, sanitation, health care and human rights. This separation is facilitated by the emotional and historical milieus of sports competitions which frame the hosting of events within the non-rational, the patriotic or the intangible. The invention, production, marketing, and consumption of sports mega-events rarely includes complete information regarding the scope, scale and cost of urban and social interventions thereby constructing and maintaining a public veil of ignorance regarding the event.

3) The accelerated cycles of exceptional events has diluted their unique character, increased the scale of intervention and created a permanent and revolving “state of exception” (Agamben  2005). The global peregrinations of “celebration capital” (Boykoff 2013) have created trans-national knowledge sharing networks that continually evolve to meet the logistical, political and infrastructural challenges posed by hosts. These networks articulate with local, vested interests to extract maximum capital (in all its forms) within the event`s temporal horizon (seven years in the case of the Olympics and World Cup).  

4) In order for a maximum of accumulation to occur in the event horizon a specific mode of production needs to be imported and implemented. This mode of production can be considered a “Mega-event industrial complex” that is highly mobile and highly flexible, using metropolitan, state, national and international actors to transform the political, economic and socio-spatial dynamics of hosts. The mode of production requires extensive political, urban and social interventions in order to stimulate flows and circulations to the maximum degree possible. However, these flows are heavily directed and controlled, are of a certain type and have enduring effects on the exercise of power.

5) The general tendency of the mega-event mode of production is to limit the “right to the city” through the installation of a new form of governmentality (Foucault 2004, 108) that uses apparatuses of security as its essential technical element.  The mode of production can also be understood as a series of techniques, deployments, and tactics that restructures urban space through the mechanisms of discipline and security. This apparatus is meant to transform the use value of the city for local residents into exchange value for more mobile agents, thus transferring economic capital to higher circuits while allowing for the unfettered accumulation of political and symbolic capital by local and national politicians.  No informed population with a strong civil society would consensually submit to this outlandish proposal, thus the security apparatus functions to establish and guarantee these new circulations through the exercise of violence.

Agambem, Giorgio.2005. States of Exception. . Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
Boykoff, Jules. 2013. Celebration Capitalism. Forthcoming.
Foucault, Michel. 2004. Security, Territory, Population. Editions du Seuil/Gallimard. New York: Picador.

The Wire, Season 6

At the end of April, three major international organizations visited Rio to deal with Olympic related developments – The IOC, the UN, and Amnesty International. You can probably guess the tone of each of their public statements. I attended the public meeting between the IOC, the Prefeitura, and Rio 2016 which was used as an opportunity to present the new transparency [sic] website Cidade Olímpica (www.cidadeolimpica.com). 

The website presentation was undertaken by the Olympic Parrot, Felipe Goes, and was an embarrassingly shallow testament to the mind-numbing obtuseness of discursive Olympism. The website is slick and paints a picture of “progress” without social, economic, environmental, or structural costs. If you want to sit in an office in Switzerland, São Paulo, or New York and check on the strides that the Cariocas are taking to make you more money, than this is the perfect instrument. If you want to know how and where public funds are being spent, how to interact with the process, or get real information about anything, then just sit back and wait for the bulldozer to come. The website provides 360 degree views of construction sites, tidy videos with carefully crafted interviews, unknown academics talking about Rio’s “transformative” history, and nary a word of opposition or a hint of discord. Everything will happen smoothly, the city will undergo a ‘natural and naturalized’ transformation bringing untold benefits to untold millions. I encourage readers to go through the website to see the projects underway. If you are able to find out any information that goes beyond mere presentation, please let me know so I can have them take it off the website.

The euphemistic void of the new website made me nostalgic for the old black box of www.transparenciaolimpica.com.br. In returning to it after a month away, I was stunned to find that they had reconfigured the site and taken out what little information there was. It’s a joke, an Olim-piada. 

For instance, click on this link and try to get information about the VLT Centro line: http://www.transparenciaolimpica.com.br/projetos2.htm. This brings you to a continual feedback loop which, ironically, functions much like the VLT (Light Rail) line which is projected to circulate only through the Porto Maravilha development project, avoiding connection with the Metro, Rail, and Ferry lines. I shake my head so much in disbelief that I’m developing preternaturally strong neck muscles.

Having read Raquel Rolnk’s UN report denouncing the violations of human rights that are already happening throughout Rio as the government bulldozes homes and building to make way for transportation projects and stadia, I was eager to hear what the Olympian Cerberus had to say about the very strong denunciations.

Geostadia: This has been a very important week for the government and for Rio 2016. Not only is the IOC evaluating developments but the UN and Amnesty International have condemned the government for severe violations of human rights and non-compliance with international treaties to which Brazil is a signatory. I would like to hear how the Prefeitura, Rio 2016, and the IOC are responding to these charges.

Eduard Paes (summary of): I don’t think that the UN is going to need to respond to this question so I’ll just deal with it myself. You have to separate the transportation projects from the Olympic project…

Geostadia (incredulous): But you just presented a whole website link…

Eduardo Paes (irritiated): It will be much easier to get through this if you let me finish.

Carlos Nuzman (bored, thinking about lunch, never looking at the press corps)

Eduardo Paes: As I was saying, these removals have nothing to do with the Olympics because you have to separate the Olympic Facilities from the other infrastructures.

At this point I stopped writing, stopped listening. My head filled with the sound of all of the world’s national anthems being played at once.

As Paes tried to close the door on the subject by asking for another question, Gilbert Felli, head of the IOC delegation took the microphone, answering me directly.

Felli: We don’t want to give the impression that the IOC doesn’t care about these questions. We understand that many of the benefits that the Olympics bring come with consequences and we will be asking Rio de Janeiro for a list of all of the disappropriations being made. We have this problem in all Olympic cities [and how, I thought (two million people in 20 years)], and we are looking to establish more relationships with local and international NGOs in order to deal more effectively with the problem.

There were a couple of other questions regarding the massive flooding that happened around the Maracanã, effectively shutting down the Tijuca region of the city for three days. Of course, but of course, there are project under way to fix this problem, but the reality of the situation is that when it rains in Tijuca and the tide is high, there is nowhere for the water to go and the Maracanã becomes a mud bath.

(I also need to point out that after the official launching of the website, the site didn’t get on air for two days. During the presentation, the Olympic Parrot had to keep pecking at off-line videos to show content. Yet another show at the Rio 2016 amateur hour).

Privatized Mud Bowl

We knew it was coming but have finally had official confirmation. The Maracanã will, after undergoing more than a R$ 1,5 billion of reforms over six years, be given over to a private concession. Sergio Cabral made the announcement here, saying that “a stadium like the Maracanã simply doesn’t fit into the hands of public power”. So, after 60 years, the Maracanã, once the greatest and grandest public space in Rio, Brazil and the Americas, will be fully privatized. As I have been saying in my recent pieces for Brazilian audiences, the Maracanã is dead and we are just entering into stages of denial. The mourning process hasn’t even begun.

Paul McCartney 1 Fla-Flu 0

The Brazilian national championship is going to kick off in two weeks but no games will be played in Rio de Janeiro. Vasco and Botafogo are away and Fla and Flu will have nowhere to play because Paul McCartney is going to be using the Engenhão. With the Maracanã closed to general use until the end of the Paralympics in September of 2016, when big shows come to town three of the big four have to find somewhere else to play. How is it that Rio de Janeiro does not have the capacity to have both Paul McCartney and football occur on the same weekend? No one knows where these games are going to be played yet, which is making it mighty difficult for the Associação Nacional dos Torcedores to organize a protest. Come on CBF, get your s#!@# together so the formgias can take it apart!

Tropa do Elite III

The forced evictions in Rio are accompanied by two major resettlement projects, Morar Carioca and Minha Casa, Minha Vida. The majority of these settlements are in the far, far western suburbs where the presence of milícias is particularly strong. Milícias are the Rio equivalent of 19^th century New York ward bosses that control the provision of water, gas, electricity, cable, security, drugs, and transportation for poor neighborhoods. Comprised of off-duty cops and other civil servants, the milícias were the subject of the Tropa do Elite 2 film. They are clearly a major problem and represent a parallel state structure that is completely intertwined with the democratically elected government. Given the more generalized confusions it came as a shock to hear the Municipal Secretary of housing, Jorge Bittar, announce that there is no way to get rid of the milícias operating in the Minha Casa Minha Vida projects. This is an admission that the state has failed in a large geographic area and has allowed that vacuum to be filled by armed gangs who are much more powerful than the drug trafficking factions that have been the target of the UPP installations throughout the city.

Stringer Bell, Marlow Stanfield, Tommy Carcetti, José Maria Beltrame, José Pataro Botelho de Queiroz

Another two pieces of the personality puzzle fell into place over the last ten days. Maria Silvia Bastos Marques will take control of the newly formed Municipal Olympic Authority and Brazil’s top international cop José Ricardo Pataro Botelho de Queiroz will take control of the special security organization. The list of names, players, companies, and institutional arrangements is beginning to fill out. All we need now is for someone to start making a mocumentary like this one about the preparations for the Sydney Olympics:

The Olympic Park Project (OPP)

And finally, the contest to design the Olympic park has begun. This Olim-piada deserves book length treatment. Some highlights:

• The Olympic Park project is isolated from the city, making an integrated urbanization project nearly impossible
• There is a 25 meter “environmental zone” around the perimeter, ostensibly to protect the lake, but really, it’s there to eliminate houses in the Vila Autódromo.
• The majority of the houses in the Vila Autodrómo fall outside the project area, rasing questions about the Prefeitura’s intentions for the community.
• 40% of the park area must be given over to sporting infrastructure (CTO, Centro de Trinamento Olímpico) and 60% for real-estate speculation. 
•  The project should not cost more than R$590 million
•  Only companies that have prior experience with Olympic projects can apply
•  The material was published on May 5 and the deadline is June 30
•  All of the proposals will be evaluated and the results published on July 13 (a two week evaluation period for a concusro that will undoubtedly receive scores of proposals from all over the world)
•  900 pages of information

·         This edital substitutes the previous attempt by Rio 2016 to cram though the Olympic Park project without competition. The IAB (Brazilian Architects Institute) cried foul over a lack of transparency during the initial process in September 2010. It remains to be seen how transparent this process will be as the evaluation committee has yet to be named.

As this process develops over the coming months, Geostadia will be laying a heavy hand on the winning proposal with extreme prejudice. For now, I hope to have given you enough things to chew on for two weeks as I take a little break to work on some other projects. Please keep linking the site to yours and please send comments!  

Putting the pieces together, building the Olympic city

Today’s headline in OGlobo: government gives R$ 20 billion (US$11.2 billion) for the 2014 World Cup. This astronomical sum is divided between airports (R$5.6 b), ports (R$740 m), hotels (R$ 1.8 b), stadiums (R$4.8 b), and urban mobility (R$7.8 b). These are most of the essential pieces of hosting a mega-event. This R$20 billion does not include investment from state and municipal governments, which, along with the inevitable cost overruns will push limits of my solar powered calculator. If only they would hurry up with the damming of the Xingú!

On page 15 of today’s OGlobo (I do actually get news from other sources, but this is the morning ritual), three more indications that things are moving quickly in Rio:

 1) There is a proposal to the Plano Director (Master Plan) of Rio that will allow for the privatization of public spaces, ala the Business Investment Districts that Giuliani installed in NYC in the 1990s.

2) The Port of Rio will receive R$1.6 billion in public investment through 2014. This money is separate from and in addition to the R$ 20 billion announced on the front page.

3) The Olympic project will forgive any and all debts accrued by Rio’s Dock Company (Companhia das Docas) in order to facilitate the transfer of real estate to private investors. This debt remission needs to be added to the public financing as well, but no one knows just how much is owed by the Companhia das Docas to the federal government.

There are complex calculations that need to be done in order to arrive at an estimated value for the planned investments. One example is the R$3.5 billion that is being redirected from the Fundo de Garantia por Tempo de Serviço (Gauranteed Fund for Time Served, a public pension fund) for the demolition of  one stretch of the Elevado de Perimetral. This demolition is part of the Rio city government’s Porto Maravilha project. This should be considered a public investment but it is unclear who is going to receive the money, who will direct the project, and how the government intends to track the spending.

At the same time that Lula is throwing as much money as possible at mega-events, he “fears the errors of the 2007 Pan American Games” (p. 6 in the Sports section). The Pan 2007 was ten times over budget and left no “urban legacy” for the city. Part of the problem during the Pan was that no one was clearly responsible for the work being done or the cost overruns, so the government ended up with the tab. The Olympics are an order of magnitude greater than the Pan and the same people are in charge, with modifications that will make the money trail even harder to follow. The World Cup is not as financially demanding, but all the same, Lula affirmed that the federal government will create conditions for World Cup host cities to “increase their debt capacity” so that they can restructure urban space in order to host FIFA’s private party.

There is a government website dedicated to the control of public spending on the Olympics, but since it was launched at the end of 2009, it has not changed in the slightest and is perpetually under construction. Last month, Lula created the APO (Public Olympic Authority) as well as the Empresa Brasileira de Legado Esportivo S.A. - BRASIL 2016 (Brazilian Company for Sporting Legacy, Inc), which will do a million different things in addition to receiving all of the money from the government directed at the Olympics (R$30 billion). The creation of two parallel government institutions to direct the 2016 Olympic Project is going to cause some serious confusion. Making sense of where and how the money goes in and where and how it comes out is going to make my head hurt for the next decade.

In the coming months I will be attempting to put all of these pieces together into some kind of coherent framework and welcome all comments and connections. As I see it, the construction of the Olympic City and World Cup nation involves the following elements, many of which are overlapping:

1)      City image and branding

2)      Political hegemony (in Brazil's case)

3)      Financing

a.       Federal, state, local

b.      Public Private Partnerships

c.       Transparency, corruption, & accountability

4)      Parallel government structures

a.       CBF / LOC 2014

b.      COI / LOC 2016

c.       APO

d.      BRASIL 2016

5)      Alteration of customs and immigration laws

6)      Environmental projects

7)      Re-structuring of urban space

a.       Urban “renewal” projects

b.      Real-estate speculation

c.       Changes to zoning laws

d.      Direct and indirect population resettlement

e.      Privatization of public space (BIDs)

f.        Façade painting

8)      Modification of transportation networks (international, regional, local)

a.       Airports

b.      Train

c.       Metro

d.      Bus

e.      Car
w.  Ferry
z.   Bicycle?

9)      Modernization / Upgrade of communication networks

10)   Production of “global” cultural spaces

a.       Museums

b.      Consumer culture

c.       Commodification of locality

d.      Tour guide and taxi driver language training

11)   Tourist accommodation

12)   Athlete, referee, and media accommodation

13)   Security

14)   Sport installations
15) Global Crime Networks (GCNs)
16) Corruption, Conflict of Interest, Transparency

Nossa senhora! A gente tem muito trabalho pra frente…