Territorial Organization and Territories of Intentional High Risk: For the Right to the City

Érica Ferrer, and Fernando Luiz Araújo Sobrinho

Department of Geography, University of Brasília, Brazil

Abstract: When distributing infrastructure, politically motivated policy results in the creation of some territories that are safer for human life than others. Risky territories created by design are urban ones with less infrastructure (health, safety, leisure, education, etc.) when compared with other territories within the same city. These differences in urban territories are a result of this unequal distribution of infrastructure, as well as of existing segregation in cities. The concept of an at-risk territory created by design is useful in studies in fields such as urban geography, the geography of crime, sociology, urbanism, architecture, public administration, law, public health, security, history, human rights, and engineering. In its urban planning and territoryal development processes, the State creates some

spaces with more infrastructure than others, and the latter suffer from the lack of these public services. This lack of state provisions can intentionally create at-risk territories, and the intentionality resides in the lack of action on the part of the government. Through this lens, violence can be expressed at different levels. However, this study is focused on homicide-related crime. This type of crime (homicide) is considered herein because it is a crime with many consequences and with a brutal effect on society. Moreover, it has typically been the most severely punished crime throughout the history of human societies. In Brazil, the spatial distributions of the city of Rio de Janeiro and Distrito Federal, the district that encompasses the current capital of the country, were both motivated by the strong presence of public power. Rio de Janeiro was the federal capital and seat of government of Brazil from 1763 to 1960 (approximately 200 years). Brasilia has been the federal capital of Brazil since 1960. Therefore, the presence of public power is and always has been decisive in these two cities. Thus, the analysis of this study provides a concrete emphasis of spatial divisions within both Distrito Federal and the city of Rio de Janeiro to determine the relevance of these spaces to the concept of territorial order, which segregates the provision of infrastructure to certain populations, and the importance of these spaces within the context of Distrito Federal and Rio de Janeiro. The analysis focuses on data from 2013, for which the most recent and comprehensive data was available at the time of the present study. The objective of this case study was to determine whether there is a relation between infrastructure and the number of homicides in the city of Rio de Janeiro and in the capital district known as Distrito Federal. The infrastructures considered were the numbers of public hospitals, police stations, theaters, bookstores, schools, and government-run daycare centers. A combination of statistical methods and dialectics was the most viable methodology for this study. The products of this study are maps that report the number of homicides, its association with infrastructure, and the creation of the term “intentionally at-risk territory.”

Key words: urban geography, geography of crime, violence, Brasilia, Rio de Janeiro, civics