Paper short abstract:

Brazil will host both FIFA 2014 World Cup and IOC 2016 Olympic Games and Rio is the central part of this project. Its harbour region is now managed by private corporations such as big real estate companies. This paper shows the uncertainty among inhabitants that live in those areas under renewal.

Paper long abstract:

Rio de Janeiro harbour region is now managed by private corporations such as big real estate companies. This area has many important urban cultural heritage sites like the hills of Conceição and Providência. The first hill represents an ancient colonial urban tissue that is officially a national heritage and the second one is the first favela of Brazil. In spite of the different conditions of those two spaces, both are susceptible to the renewal project impacts:

- Conceição hill is starting to show significant changes towards the process known as gentrification due to its "cultural appeal" which puts it as a place to be transformed for the future tourism-consumers that will visit Rio;

- Providência Hill suffers a kind of official blackmail in order to restart the ancient process of removing poor population from downtown to distant areas. Many houses were painted with the inscription SMH - Municipal Housing Services - and a mysterious number that menaces those inhabitants. The information they have now is: if your house is painted you must go out! But why, when, where to go, and the price they will get paid for their houses they just don´t know...

Both situations showed us that one important focus to be understood in our future research is the way these tools of territory control are being institutionally build. Our studies are tending to show that there are no reliable social pacts in order to assure safety to Rio de Janeiro´s inhabitants that now live in those privatized areas.