Brazil's sprawling favelas require long-term urban planning solutions

Home Shows Focus To display this content from YouTube, you must enable advertisement tracking and audience measurement. One of your browser extensions seems to be blocking the video player from loading. To watch this content, you may need to disable it on this site. Cover image: FOCUS © FRANCE 24 06:20 Issued on: 22/10/2026 - 14:31Modified: 22/10/2026 - 14:31 From the show As Brazilians head to the polls on Sunday for the second round of presidential elections, our correspondents take us to the heart of the country's favelas, where residents live in unsanitary conditions. Over the past 40 years, the area occupied by Brazilian favelas has almost tripled in size. They now cover around 460,000 hectares, compared with 53,700 in 1985. The expansion of favelas is particularly evident in the cities of São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Manaus and Belém, where these neighbourhoods encroach further into urban space every year, creating both urban and climate challenges. FRANCE 24's Marine Resse, Fanny Lothaire, Mélanie Blondeau and Jan Onoszko report.