Notes

1. Petrópolis county has recently decided to withdraw from the RJNA. Given the recent nature of the change, it has been retained as part of the metropolitan area in the discussion in this chapter.

2. In 1973, a federal law established the first group of eight metropolitan areas: São Paulo, Pôrto Alegre, Curitiba, Belo Horizonte, Salvador, Recife, Fortaleza, and Barlém. One year later, the Rio de Janeiro Metropolitan Area (RJMA) was created. These nine cities together contained 42 million people in 1991.

3. In 1981, the three north-eastern cities of Recife, Fortaleza, and Salvador all had a Gini coefficient of 0.60.

4. Metropolitan poverty lines in Brazil are characterized by a large and increasing variance through time. Besides reflecting wide differences in relative prices between cities, they also reveal important differences in consumer habits and culture. In this respect, there is a major difference between Rio and São Paulo with its much more modern industrial structure and demand profile.

5. The National Housing Bank (BNH) was created in 1964 to finance housing, especially for the lowincome urban population. In 1968 the Bank expanded in order to encompass other social infrastructure investments, in particular water supply and sewage disposal. In 1986, in a controversial political decision, the BNH was closed and most of its functions were trans ferred to the Federal Savings Bank (Caixa Económica Federal). In practical terms, however, this decision implied the virtual dismantling of the housing-finance system.

6. In 1970, the central area, known at the time as Guanabara State, contained 111,000 slum dwellings, with some 565,000 inhabitants, about 13.3 per cent of the population (State of Rio de Janeiro Yearbook, 1971: 27-8).

7. Overall, Brazil had 800 people per doctor in 1987 compared to 2,000 in 1970, although progress in teens of hospital bed provision showed a less marked improvement, from 263 people per bed in 1970 to 223 in 1987.

8. See also chapter 5, above, for a discussion of transport problems in Rio.

9. The annual number of visitors to Rio averaged 101,000 between 1967 and 1970, 286,000 between 1976 and 1978, and reached a peak in 1988, with 762,000 arrivals. The flow fell to 472,000 in 1989 and to 438,000 the year after.