SIEMENS

Favela, that's a city within a city — but completely disorganized,” says 57-year-old George Vidor. When he looks out the window of his apartment in Botafogo he sees one of many such cities that exist within Rio de Janeiro: the favela Santa Marta. “In 2008, that was still a war zone,” says Vidor, a business journalist who is also a genuine “carioca,” someone born in Rio, that is. Rival drug gangs regularly had gun battles in Santa Marta and often shot innocent bystanders. “Two years ago, the police went in with heavy weapons. That was part one of the ‘pacification' of the favela, as it's described in Rio.”

Part two was the cable car line that was built and now runs up and down the steep hillside. It penetrates deep into the slum, which is home to 8,000 people and a samba school. For the inhabitants, it is an opportunity to get to work a little earlier. That can often be at the other end of the city, because work is rare in Rio and people take whatever they can get. But thanks to the new cable car line, the favela is slowly being integrated into the rest of the city.

For Vidor, this positive development is part of a bigger story — a story about Rio's decline and rebirth. “Rio used to be the pearl of Brazil, and it was the capital city for a long time,” he proudly explains. In the nineteen-forties, other parts of the country were quickly industrialized and caught up with Rio. São Paulo became the country's industrial heart, Brasilia later became the new capital (see interview with Oscar Niemeyer, Pictures of the Future, Spring 2010). “Rio gradually became less glamorous, until it seemed that the impressive scenery of the Sugar Loaf Mountain and Corcovado were all that was left.” But Vidor is convinced that this process has meanwhile been reversed. In 2014 and 2016, Rio will host visitors from around the world during the soccer World Cup and the Olympic Games, and many expect the city to become the pearl of Brazil once again.

The discovery of oil off Rio's coast has also sparked new hope. This treasure is still buried—it lies deep below the seabed and the cost and risk of exploiting it still remains to be estimated reliably. But Rio is in need of the money that could be generated; above all, to develop the city's neglected infrastructure and to promote future-oriented industries.

In general, Brazil is a place that has plenty of experience with innovations. Siemens, for instance, operates six development centers in the country, where innovations are adapted to market requirements. For example, the company has adapted a steam turbine to the needs of the Brazilian market. The turbine is produced locally in Jundiaí near São Paulo and will soon also be exported. A space-saving transformer for electricity substations has also been developed specifically for the local market by Brazilian Siemens engineers in Jundiaí. It will be used in the São Paulo metropolitan area, where land is extremely expensive.

Just a few hundred meters from Vidor's apartment on the other side of the hill, beyond the Santa Marta favela that is, lies the home of author and moderator André Trigueiro. He has published numerous books on the subject of sustainability. “About 1.3 million people live in favelas in Rio, which is, in absolute numbers, more than anywhere else in Brazil. In fact, the word favela was coined in Rio,” explains Trigueiro. Some of Rio's slums are in the middle of the city, right next door to the wealthy suburbs in the south. For decades, makeshift huts spread up the hill, without any building permits. In heavy rainfalls, some of the huts are washed away. Infrastructure improvements are essential in these areas; but in Triguerio's opinion, they will only be sustainable if social conditions also improve, poverty is alleviated and drug-related crime is reduced.