The favelas of Rio de Janiero have the reputation of being the informal. As Daniela Fabricius had stated in “Resisting Representation” the favelas are unmapped and ignored in city’s municipal surveys. The favelas though are redefining how they are informal. All the elements that make up the formal city exist in some form or another in the informal city. Electricity, television, public trasportion all exist in the informal city. They emulate and mimic their formal counter parts but differ to fit the informal context. The informal counterparts are cheaper but still as integral to their existence and operation.

The implications of this are that conflict inevitably occurs are the moments of overall and threshold of the formal and informal city. The vans that supply transportation to the informal city now illegally shadow the the formal buses that support the formal city. The informal city’s electricity comes from electricity stolen from the formal city. The same can be said for television cable. Interestingly though the municipal government admits that the informal infrastructure, especially transportation, is needed to keep the city from operating.

This becomes important for the city to understand. If the arteries of the city’s circulation and infrastructure need informal options to maintain’s the city operation then ignoring the favela may no longer be a viable option. If maps of Rio show the favelas as not existing because they are informal then the informal infrastructure need exists in a gray area of the  maniple government’s vision. The government either ignores their existence or acknowledges that they are practicing illegally. Yet the government admits that these system are needed for the city to operate.

This means that the informal city can no longer be ignored or unmapped. The municipal government has placed itself in a postion to ignore certain aspects of the informal city but still rely on certain aspects of the informal city. The municipal government has become hypocritical in its relationship with the informal city. But the municipal government’s need of certain aspects of the informal may be the way the informal becomes mapped. If the area of conflict where hypocricy exists where thought of a seeds to map the informal, potential exists to connect and thus legitimize the informal to the formal. This could be where illegal aspects of the informal gain legitimacy and integration. The key to helping the informal could exist in how the informal and formal meet and integrate.

Daniela Fabricius, Resisting Representation: The Informal Geographies of Rio de Janiero (Harvard Design Magazine, 2008).