Brazil is located on the eastern coast of South America, it has an extension of 8'514, 877 square kilometers, a population of 209 568, 000 and a density of 25.1 per square kilometers (UNdata, 2016). Despite Brazil achievements in poverty reduction, Brazil has one of the highest rates of inequality in the world, and is the third most unequal country in Latin America. With more than 20% of its population living under the poverty line and 7% of its population considered as extremely poor (The World Bank, 2016). Brazil rapid urbanization process began from 1970 onwards, with 85% of its population living in urban areas nowadays (UN-Habitat, 2012).
Brazil has experienced an overwhelming urbanization process in the last century, almost completing its urban transitional process. This rapid process has caused problems and disruption to the country
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In 1993 the new municipality started the analysis of favelas policies, condemning the community eradication policies and opting for the recovery of the city by dignifying their public spaces and neighborhoods through different programs, one of which was Favela Bairro, a municipal initiative launched in 1994 with support from the Inter-American Development Bank and the municipal and national governments (Andreatta, 2005; Lucci et al., 2015). The Favela Bairro program sought to transform the favelas into formal neighborhoods, it was based on generating proper infrastructure as well as the necessary basic and public services for each of its inhabitants. The program sought to cover all favelas, as a comprehensive plan, an integral physic urbanistic intervention to assist the integration of favelas with the city, and thereby generating the inclusion and improvement of opportunities for its inhabitants (Andreatta, 2005; Riley, Fiori and Ramirez,