One in five slum dwellers lives on the roads or arrives only by motorbike or bicycle

• Census 2022: Brazilian slums suffer from a lack of trees, and the streets lack sidewalks and drains
• From fan to base basket: Christmas orders arouse the interest of participants in the “Santa Claus at the Post Office” campaign.

Outside these communities, the scenario is very different, and road capacity tends to be much greater. In this section, the percentage of people living in places with this profile is only 1.4%.

Favela residents who live in places accessible to passenger cars and small trucks represent 18.8% of the total, while 62% live on roads accessible to large vehicles. In contrast, 94% of the rest of the population lives in points that can be reached by truck, car, van, motorcycle, bicycle or on foot.

— There is also a significant 38% of slum residents who live where trucks cannot be driven. This means that it is difficult to access some public services, because there is no garbage truck or ambulance passing by – confirms Claudio Steiner, geographer at IBGE.

Rio de Janeiro, Amapa and Alagoas are states where the difference between the proportion of residents living at addresses where trucks cannot pass and those living on roads with this capacity exceeds 40%. In Amapá, this distance reaches 54.6%, while in Rio and Alagoas it reaches 43.2% and 43.7%, respectively. When the analysis turns to the city level, the capital of Rio appears with a 53% difference between these two categories. The distance between São Paulo, Salvador and Recife is 40%, 36.7% and 35.8%, respectively.

— In Manguera (a favela in the northern region of Rio), only 10% of the population has access to these roads that accommodate buses and trucks, says the head of the regional research sector at the International Institute of Geological Engineering, Felipe Borsani.

The slum with the largest population living on roads capable of receiving trucks and buses is Cidade Olímpica, in São Luís, Maranhão, where 98.7% of the 27,000 residents live in the slum. Other communities where more than 90% of the population lives in these conditions are the Sol Nacente Favela, in the Federal District (94.9%), and Grand Vitoria, in Manaus (92.1%).

Other data collected by the institute included the presence of bus or small truck stops on the roads within slums, a distinct urban area where 836,000 people live, equivalent to 5.2% of the population of these communities. As with road capacity, the number is higher outside slums, where the proportion of people living in sections with these structures is more than double (12.1%).

Urban theme

These data are part of IBGE’s survey on urban characteristics around homes, which analyzed a series of questions related to public spaces inside and outside slums and urban communities. The list of analyzed characteristics includes, in addition to the maximum capacity of the road and the presence of bus stops, the presence of trees, paving, public lighting, etc.

For example, a total of 64% of residents of slums and urban communities lived on treeless roads in 2022 – outside of these areas, the figure is 31%. Only 10.5% of those living in these areas live with five or more trees in their backyard.

Other data collected by IBGE is the percentage of slum residents who have sidewalks or sidewalks around their homes. Data shows that 46.1% of these people live in public spaces without these structures. Outside of communities, only 10.1% of people dealt with the problem of lack of space for pedestrian movement.

– This feature becomes more present as the size of the slums increases. It’s not a big increase, but we were able to notice it – thinks Larissa Katala, Head of the Slum and Urban Communities Support Sector at IBGE.

The number of sidewalks that provide space for free pedestrian movement is also less in these locations. IBGE determined that only 3.8% of residents of slums or urban communities live at addresses without sidewalk obstructions. Outside slums, this percentage rises to 22.4%.

In a total of 10,974 slums less than 10% of residents have unobstructed sidewalks around their homes. In Rio, the situation is worse in Rocinha and Rio das Piedras, where less than 0.5% of their residents have access to free sidewalks near their homes.

Less than half of the slum population lives on areas of roads with drains or rainwater drains, a total of 7.3 million people, equivalent to 45.4% of the total, compared to 8.8 million who live on areas without this infrastructure. Outside of poor neighborhoods, 61.8% of people find this equipment around their homes. The survey did not analyze whether the manholes were fully operational.