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Lookup NU author(s): Dr Matthew RichmondORCiD
This is the authors' accepted manuscript of an article that has been published in its final definitive form by Wiley, 2016.
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This article considers processes of urban development within the context of mega-event preparations in Rio de Janeiro. We begin with a brief overview of these development processes, highlighting their connections to political and economic change in recent years. Proponents of these mega-event-led initiatives argue that Rio is undergoing a period of inclusive growth and integration: a perspective we call here a ‘post-Third-World city’ narrative of urban renewal. Critics, however, contend that urban officials are harnessing mega-events (e.g. the 2014 World Cup and the 2016 Olympic Games) to push forward a neoliberal agenda of socially unjust policies benefiting the interests of capital and marginalizing the city’s poor and especially its favelas (i.e. the ‘city-of-exception’ thesis). In this article we explore the insights of these two perspectives and consider why they have grown popular in recent years. Though we side generally with the city-of-exception thesis, we argue that important geographic and historical particularities must also be accounted for. Without carefully situating analytical perspectives empirically—in particular, cases in which theoretical models are drawn from European and North American contexts—urban researchers risk concealing more than they reveal in analyses of rapidly developing countries like Brazil.
Author(s): Richmond MA, Garmany J
Publication type: Article
Publication status: Published
Journal: International Journal of Urban and Regional Research
Year: 2016
Volume: 40
Issue: 3
Pages: 621-639
Print publication date: 01/05/2016
Online publication date: 30/07/2016
Acceptance date: 02/04/2016
Date deposited: 08/02/2024
ISSN (print): 0309-1317
ISSN (electronic): 1468-2427
Publisher: Wiley
URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/1468-2427.12338
DOI: 10.1111/1468-2427.12338
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