Although Rio may be Brazil’s most beautiful city, it is also one of its most troubled. The favelas which blanket the slopes of surrounding hillsides house approximately 20 percent of the city’s residents and are often dangerous, unsanitary, and lacking in basic services such as water, sewerage, and, to a lesser extent, electricity. Many of the city’s poor have no jobs, no access to schools, and only limited access to medical care. However, literacy rates for Rio are high, nearly 90 percent, and a system of public hospitals and clinics provides at least some medical care to the city’s poorest residents. Police corruption is widespread. Environmental pollution is a problem throughout the metropolitan region, and the waters of Guanabara Bay are considered too polluted for safe bathing.
Rio experienced serious crime problems in the early 1990s, when powerful criminal gangs took over entire favela neighborhoods. The murders of homeless children in 1993 by corrupt police officers acting on behalf of commercial interests drew international attention to Rio’s social and criminal problems. With a murder rate of 61 per 100,000 people in 1994, Rio was one of the world’s most violent cities. This was more than twice the rate of 28 per 100,000 for São Paulo.
