Janice Perlman is President and Founder of the Mega-Cities Project. She is also the author of The Myth of Marginality: Urban Poverty and Politics in Rio de Janeiro, which won the C. Wright Mills Award.

Introduction
1
CHAPTER 1 Deep Roots in Shallow Soil
24
CHAPTER 2 The World Goes to the City
41
The Favela That Was
62
From Favela to Complexo
93
Favelas and Loteamentos
121
CHAPTER 6 Marginality from Myth to Reality
147
CHAPTER 7 Violence Fear and Loss
165
CHAPTER 10 Globalization and the Grassroots
246
CHAPTER 11 Reflections on Public Policy
264
CHAPTER 12 The Importance of Being Gente
316
APPENDIX 1 Research Methods and Challenges
341
APPENDIX 2 Analytical Framework for Assessing Success
355
Notes
361
References
385
Index
399

CHAPTER 8 Disillusion with Democracy
200
CHAPTER 9 The Mystery of Mobility
220
저작권

With "World Youth Day" taking place in Rio this week, and crowds of a million people gathering on the beach, I pulled this book out again. This is what I wrote when I first started the book:

This is an amazing book. I have read about half of it, but couldn't wait to post a review and my highest recommendation. Dr. Perlman, professor and founder/president of the Mega-Cities Project, shares the stories of people she has followed over four decades in the favela and conjunto communities of Rio de Janeiro (such as Nova Brasilia and Catacumba). For example, she tells the story of Ze Cabo, once the president of the Residents' Association in Nova Brasilia, and his extended family. Such multigenerational stories of people's lives also become the story of her life, doing the work of understanding, appreciating, and participating in the lives of Rio's urban poor, and communicating accurately and insightfully about them.

The word "favela" was only slightly known to me before. The evolving nature of these communities is explored with factual clarity (and documentation), with compassion and empathy, but never with sentimentalism. Yet Dr. Perlman's deep involvement with her life's work and those who have made it possible by opening their homes to her shines through every page, with passion and intense commitment. The section in her Introduction titled "Why I Love Favelas" may open your eyes and change your minds, if you have a preconceived notion of the towns blanketing the hills of Rio, away from Ipanema and Copacabana beaches. If you have a desire to better understand where the world is headed in the next century as our largest cities become "mega-cities," you could not find a better introduction to the heart of the matter.