Ahead of the 2014 World Cup and 2016 Olympics, officials in Rio de Janeiro are taking on a massive upgrade project in the city's slums.
It's a dual effort of increasing police presence in the traditionally unregulated favelas and embarking on a broad urbanization program.
"With the 2014 World Cup and 2016 Olympics on the horizon, authorities are engaging in two simultaneous battles to improve life in the favelas: implementing "pioneering" pacification schemes in the slums and splashing out billions of dollars remodelling the favelas as part of an urbanisation initiative called Morar Carioca (roughly "Rio Living").
The selection process, which ends next month, will see 40 architecture practices tasked with redesigning 582 inner-city slums that house around 1.2 million impoverished and excluded Brazilians."
FULL STORY: Rio de Janeiro favelas to get facelift as Brazil invests billions in redesign

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City of Albany
UCLA Lewis Center for Regional Policy Studies
Mpact (formerly Rail~Volution)
Chaddick Institute at DePaul University
City of Piedmont, CA
Great Falls Development Authority, Inc.
HUDs Office of Policy Development and Research