Went to Barra today to do an interview, the souther suburbs of Rio. Rio de Janeiro is stretched along the coast, sandwiched between the sea and a mountain range. It follows the coast of Guanabara bay, then turns the corner and continues along an ocean beach. In the middle you have Downtown (“o Centro”), where many go to work. North of downtown is Zona Norte, which is poorer, south is Zona Sul – the richer parts. As you follow the coast down from downtown the areas get increasingly more upscale: Flamengo beach, Botafogo beach, Copacabana, Ipanema, Leblon – then boom, you get Rocinha – a huge favela and Zona Sul gets suspended for a bit. There is a road around Rocinha along the coast, but taxi drivers avoid it at night, fearing bullets. (You don’t want to be between a rock and the sea when the bullets start flying.) Instead, they take another road – a tunnel that passes under Rocinha.
If you do get through the hill one way or another you are in São
Conrado – an uneasy part of Zona Sul that is still upscale, though
besieged by the favela. It is still standing strong, but probably not
for much longer. Continuing south of São Conrado you turn another
peninsular and see the expanse that is Barra – the part of Rio de
Janeiro that really wants to be Mountain View, except that most people
live in highrises. Unlike most of Zona Sul that is rather dense and
where you don’t want to be driving and looking for parking, Barra is
the land of parking lots and malls.
(That’s gringo’s view of Rio for you – with a detailed mapping of different parts of Zona Sul and only a vague idea of Zona Norte.)
Rio’s IT companies are largely split between Downtown and Barra. I am told that many start in the Downtown (where its a bit cheaper) and then move to Barra later when they grow enough. I seem to be going to those two places with rather different frequency, however: I head to Downtown at least once a week, often much more, while I've gone to Barra only three times in my five months here. I've been trying to not screen people out based on where they live or work and pursue all potential contacts in the same way, but I just seem to find it easier to schedule interviews with people working downtown. I wonder if I just don’t try as hard with Barra contacts because Barra feels less acceessible.
In reality, actually getting there is quite simple. You can take a van there, which takes only slightly longer than subway downtown. Coming back is just a question of having to pay for taxi – taking bus through Rocinha at night is generally seen as a bad idea. It does cost R$30 (US$13), but in the interest of science that’s not that much. It’s more that people seem to talk about this road with such fear that it Barra ends up feeling less accessible than it really is. In addition to that, I've ended up meeting some people who work in Barra here in Copacabana or in Ipanema (where they might live). In contrast, for interviewees who work downtown we've always met at or near the place where they work.
Whether working in Barra or Downtown, quite a few of the people I interview commute from Zona Norte. While poorer than Zona Sul, Zona Norte isn’t all a favela. Navigating it requires a bit of skill, however, knowing where to go and where not to go. Or so I am told. So I am taking it in baby steps. At this point I finally stopped thinking of Praca de Maua and Rua Acre as Zona Norte (that’s just a few blocks north from where the business center ends), and have São Cristovão solidly on my map. I have also gone as far north as “Nova America”, which requires taking subway over a few favelas, but you end up in another pocket of malls and parking lots. I think it’s Tijuca next.