Cracks in Brazil's impressive facade

Buildings Brics: It has the world's sixth-largest economy and will host the 2014 Fifa World Cup. But Brazil's preparations are falling short, and beneath an impressive surface, its poorly managed infrastructure is buckling at its foundations.

A Brazilian flag hangs in a favela of Rio de Janeiro ahead of the FIFA 2010 World Cup. AFP
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From a distance, the neat rows of homes overlooking the rolling countryside of rural Brazil seem to be perfect examples of what South America's biggest nation should be doing to resolve its chronic housing shortage.

But as you get closer, the painful truth comes into focus. Outside, the roads are unpaved. On the roofs, tiles are missing. Inside, the electrical sockets do not work, floors are cracked and damp patches run down the walls.

Across the country in Rio de Janeiro, there is a property frenzy, with house prices more than doubling in just three years. It is a similar story in São Paulo, the city that last year beat out New York to win the dubious honour of the most expensive in the Western Hemisphere.

Brazil is booming, and while growth slowed last year, it is still an attractive place for investors fleeing the stagnant economies of the US and Europe. Interest rates are falling and credit is more widely available, meaning more people can afford to take out mortgages. In the chic neighbourhoods of Ipanema and Leblon, old-timers are cashing in their chips and executives are moving in.

Some worry it may be a bubble, but property experts point out that mortgage debt is still only about 4 per cent of GDP, a tiny fraction of what it is in the US and Europe. And prices keep rising.

The two situations highlight the extremes in Brazil's property sector as the country struggles to consolidate its place as the world's sixth-biggest economy and continue its transition from schizophrenic giant of booms and busts to serious developing-world leader.

Brazil needs houses, perhaps as many as 15 million of them to meet the demands of the homeless and to replace structures that are occupied but deemed unfit for habitation.

The government's response is a programme called My House, My Life. Since its launch in 2009, federal authorities have pledged about US$100 billion (Dh367.31bn) to build 3 million low-cost homes. So far, the keys to 700,000 of the heavily subsidised houses have been handed over.

In addition to that, $28bn is being spent on removing and upgrading the country's notorious favelas. At least 11 million Brazilians live in favelas, or shanty towns, and in São Paulo state alone, one in four existing homes are considered inadequate.

The houses in Franca, a city of 300,000 people five hours from São Paulo, are not part of the My House, My Life programme, but they are similar. And like them, few people are holding them up as examples of how to provide good quality, affordable homes for Brazil's poor.

"In terms of construction and design, the logic is one of 'do it as cheaply as possible', so the quality is always questionable," says Raquel Rolnik, a well-known architect who studies the issue. "They think it is for the poor so it doesn't have to be decent. The consequences for the people who live there are terrible."

Ms Rolnik says large-scale housing programmes too often adopt a one-size-fits-all design, regardless of whether the climate is hot or cold, the terrain is hilly or flat or the location is urban or rural. Work is carried out cheaply and quickly.

Local authorities are also remiss. While funding comes largely from central government, states and municipalities are charged with providing the land to build on, as well as supplying basic infrastructure such as sewage, water lines, electricity, telephone links and parks.

Seven months after the 72 homes here were handed over, many, if not most, have broken or missing roof tiles and some have problems with the electricity supply or cracked floors. When it rains, water gets in and damp patches run down the walls. Out back, the houses lack retaining walls to stop subsidence in the sloping gardens and out front the roads remain an unpaved sludge of red mud.

"When it rained, the water would come in and the floor flooded," says Ana Paula Ferreira das Gracas, 33, a mother of two. "They said they would build a back wall, but they didn't, and so we had to do it ourselves. They say they'll come and sort things, but they never do."

The bigger issue for Brazil is that these kind of complaints are common. Even at the highest levels, Brazil's infrastructure projects are routinely late, poorly built, or over budget, or all three.

Work on stadiums for the 2014 Fifa World Cup was slow to start, and public transport, particularly airports, are so behind schedule that even soccer stars turned politicians such as Pelé and Romario are predicting chaos.

New metro lines open only during off-peak hours because they not prepared to take the strain, craters appear in new motorways within weeks of the ribbon being cut and cracks run down the walls of new, multimillion-dollar buildings just days after they are inaugurated.

The proposed bullet train between Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo, perhaps the "new" Brazil's most emblematic project, was supposed to be ready for the World Cup, or at least the 2016 Olympics.

Instead, its budget has ballooned and foreign firms have shied away from getting involved. Not a single metre of track has been laid.

To make matters worse, last month there was the dramatic disintegration of a 20-storey office building in Rio, with photos of the wreckage splashed across newspapers and websites the world over. The death toll has reached 17, but the casualties could have numbered in the hundreds had the building fallen during the day instead of at night.

"You can't imagine this happening in the financial centre of New York or Paris or even Beijing," Christopher Gaffney, an American academic who is a visiting professor at the graduate school of architecture and urban planning at the Fluminense Federal University in Rio's sister city, Niterói, told AP. His research focuses on preparations for the World Cup and Olympics.

"In Rio, structural engineering is not the problem," he added. "The problem is management of the city … It's a totally unregulated system, which leads to problems" such as the exploding manholes, derailing streetcars and collapsing buildings.

In other areas, successive governments have done much to make life better for the less well-off, and the gap between rich and poor is closing faster than at any time in the country's history. But there is still an enormous chasm between the haves of Ipanema and the have-nots in Franca. No one expects the government to provide luxury lifestyles for all. But dignity for all is not too much to ask.

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