Urban integration or reconfigured inequalities? Analyzing housing precarity in São Paulo, Brazil

This article discusses recent changes in housing precarity in the city of São Paulo, showing a reduction of its intensity, but the increasing heterogeneity of the situations. We estimate the population in favelas and irregular settlements and the socioeconomic indicators of their inhabitants and households recently, drawing on a study using Census data and Geographic information system techniques. The paper shows that nonetheless there was a significant improvement of life conditions in favelas and irregular settlements, which tend to be quite heterogeneous, there is a maintenance of considerable inequalities between these housing solutions and the entire rest of the city.