Milícias and the urbanization of peripheries: a new segregation dynamic in the Rio de Janeiro metropolis

Abstract

The article examines the role of milícias in the socio-spatial transformation of Rio de Janeiro’s peripheries, analyzing how these groups have consolidated as urbanization agents in recent decades, through actions ranging from providing infrastructure to developing real estate projects. Based on a bibliographic review, documentary research, and ethnographic investigation, the study focuses on residential developments created or co-opted by milícias and argues that their involvement in this sector establishes arbitrary selectivity mechanisms, which reorganize access to land and housing and generate a new urban segregation dynamic. This selectivity extrapolates purely economic criteria as it incorporates political, religious, and behavioral dimensions, redefines the internal boundaries of Rio de Janeiro’s peripheries, shapes desirable resident profiles, and challenges established notions of popular territories historically associated with economic accessibility.

urbanization of peripheries; milícias; arbitrary selectivity; socio-spatial segregation; Rio de Janeiro

Resumo

Este artigo examina o papel das milícias na transformação socioespacial das periferias do Rio de Janeiro, analisando como esses grupos se consolidaram como agentes de urbanização nas últimas décadas – atuando desde a provisão de infraestrutura até a construção de empreendimentos imobiliários. Baseada em revisão bibliográfica, pesquisa documental e etnográfica, a investigação foca nos empreendimentos residenciais criados ou cooptados pelas milícias e argumenta que seu envolvimento nesse setor institui mecanismos de seletividade arbitrária, que reorganizam o acesso à terra e à moradia e produzem uma nova dinâmica de segregação urbana. Essa seletividade ultrapassa critérios estritamente econômicos, incorporando dimensões políticas, religiosas e comportamentais, redefinindo fronteiras internas das periferias cariocas, moldando perfis desejáveis de moradores e desafiando concepções consolidadas de territórios populares historicamente associados à acessibilidade econômica.

urbanização periférica; milícias; seletividade arbitrária; segregação socioespacial; Rio de Janeiro

Introduction

In Rio de Janeiro, research on urbanization has largely focused on the dynamics that produce and reproduce socio-spatial inequality (Lago, 2008; Ribeiro, 2015). These studies show that the metropolis’s peripheries, although socially heterogeneous, function as popular territories marked by the concentration of low-income populations and segregation from other urban areas. This article expands this debate by analyzing milícias as contemporary agents of urbanization.¹ Recent research indicates that these criminal groups have intensified their involvement in the production of peripheral space, ranging from the provision of basic infrastructure to real estate development (Coli, 2025; Hirata et al., 2021; Manso, 2020; Santos Junior et al., 2022a).

Bahiana (1978, p. 61) underscores the importance of examining the “agents that shape urban land,” that is, “the social forces that determine land use and the form of agglomeration.” Among the actors operating in the peripheries, the literature consistently highlights residents (owners or tenants), real estate promoters (small private developers and land subdividers), land grabbers, and the state (at federal, state, and municipal levels). Each actor operates differently and produces distinct spatial forms, such as favelas, subdivisions, and housing complexes. However, the literature has yet to systematically examine how spatial production driven by criminal actors affects the socio-spatial organization of the peripheries today.

Building on this gap, the analysis focuses on a specific strand of this production: residential developments created or co-opted by milícias in Rio de Janeiro. Although their typologies and modes of spatial production resemble others found in urban peripheries, milícias differ from actors such as land grabbers, developers, and residents. Their singular relationship with the state – since many of their members are also public officials, including elected politicians and members of the security forces – combined with the coercive power they exercise in the territories under their control, enables these organizations to impose their own rules and charge fees within their developments without facing systematic repression from public authorities or significant resistance from residents. Those who do not conform to the established social and economic profiles are frequently coerced, threatened, or expelled.

In this sense, the article argues that the involvement of milícias in the production and management of real estate developments has introduced a new dynamic of segregation that is not limited to economic factors – as has historically been the case – but also incorporates political, religious, and behavioral criteria.² In this context, the urban peripheries of Rio de Janeiro increasingly display boundaries of arbitrary selectivity, as they do not follow clear standards or rules, rendering sociospatial organization more complex and challenging their characterization as exclusively “popular.” This new configuration also tends to produce socially and politically homogeneous territories, often coinciding with the boundaries of criminal control, with potentially profound implications for both the social structure and urban political life.

The article is organized into three parts. The first provides a brief description of milícias in the national context. The second presents a periodization of spatial production in the metropolis, identifying three distinct moments – 1940-1979, 1980-2009, and 2010 to the present – based on the actors involved, urbanization modes, and their impacts on the organization of peripheral populations. This section enables comparison between milícias and other actors and demonstrates how successive phases of peripheral urbanization reflect different actor profiles and spatial production strategies, revealing the increasing complexity of territorial practices. The final phase identifies three typologies of real estate developments associated with this criminal organization. The third part examines how, through these developments, milícias impose a new segregation dynamic in metropolitan peripheries. It draws on national newspaper archives (2006-present),³ ethnographic fieldwork conducted in a metropolitan peripheral municipality between 2019 and 2022,⁴ and a bibliographic review of recent studies on these criminal organizations. The article concludes by proposing hypotheses regarding this new dynamic of arbitrarily selective segregation and its socio-spatial effects, while identifying gaps for future research.

It is important to note that this article is conceptual and exploratory in nature. Although it relies on direct and indirect empirical evidence from field observation and documentary and bibliographic sources, it does not aim to quantify the spatial segregation produced by milícias. Nevertheless, it demonstrates that the socio-spatial organization of Rio de Janeiro’s peripheries has been undergoing significant transformation due to the role of these criminal organizations in spatial production, making them central to understanding the metropolis’s contemporary urbanization.

Brazilian milícias

In the international context, militias have historically been defined as temporary civilian military forces mobilized during emergencies (Kan, 2019). Contemporary scholarship has broadened this definition to include non-state armed groups engaged in self-defense, informal policing, or paramilitary activities, typically without formal institutional mandates and not necessarily associated with structured criminal economies (ibid.). The term thus functions as a broad analytical category used to describe diverse forms of civilian armed organization across varied contexts, often linked to conflict, community security, or political instability.

In Brazil, however, the term milícia has acquired a specific and distinct meaning. Resignified by the local press in 2006, it came to designate groups composed of current and former security agents who, in Rio de Janeiro’s western zone, charged residents fees in exchange for protection against drug trafficking (Araujo Silva, 2018, p. 3). Part of the literature interprets these criminal organizations as a continuation of earlier death squads in the Baixada Fluminense (Neto, 2017; Souza Alves, 2003; Zaluar and Conceição, 2007), while another strand links their emergence to illegal alternative transportation networks and the so--called polícia mineira, both active in the same area (Alerj, 2008; Carvalho, Rocha and Motta, 2023; Manso, 2020).

Over time, the composition and modes of operation of milícias have become increasingly complex and wide-ranging – encompassing activities such as the provision of security, the monopolization of urban services, and even control over drug trafficking (a practice they initially claimed to combat). This evolution reveals both their adaptive capacity and the multiplicity of arrangements encompassed by the term in the Brazilian context.

Accordingly, unlike the broader international notion, milícias in Brazil have consolidated as territorial criminal organizations endowed with coercive capacity and directly embedded in local economic and political dynamics. They operate not merely as temporary self-defense or paramilitary groups, but as actors that exercise continuous territorial control, structure markets, regulate access to urban goods and services, and intervene in political relations within the spaces under their influence.

In light of these differences, Coli (2025) proposes the analytical category “Brazilian milícias,”⁵ onceived as broad and continually evolving in order to capture the internal diversity of these organizations and their specificities in Brazil.⁶

Brazilian milícias can be understood as territorial and coercive criminal organizations composed of a combination of state agents, political authorities, and civilians who pursue both economic and electoral gains. Their territorial dominance derives from the breadth of services they control and the activities they monopolize. This set of practices is diverse and mutable but can be grouped into three main axes: (1) involvement in illicit markets; (2) extortion of communities through the collection of protection fees; and (3) spatial production, encompassing real estate development projects, infrastructure construction, the monopolization of essential public and private services, and the strategic control of natural resources.

Although spatial production by these groups is not a recent phenomenon, it has gained greater visibility in recent years, particularly following the assassination of city councilor Marielle Franco⁷ and the collapse of buildings constructed by milícias in Muzema, in Rio de Janeiro’s western zone (Barros, Goulart and Rodrigues, 2019). Both cases exposed the depth of the articulation between criminal practices and urban dynamics.⁸

This article adopts this definition because it allows milícias to be understood not only as a criminal phenomenon but also as agents of urbanization that directly intervene in the production of space and in the sociospatial organization of peripheral areas. From this point forward, the text refers to Brazilian milícias simply as milícias.

Sociospatial dynamics of Rio de Janeiro’s peripheries

Rio de Janeiro’s peripheries display complex and multifaceted dynamics shaped by historical processes of urbanization, segregation, and territorial dispute. This article understands these areas as characterized by the prominent presence of autoconstruction – whether in favelas, land subdivisions, or occupations – the concentration, though not exclusively, of working-class populations, and ongoing territorial disputes among multiple actors, including residents, real estate developers, public authorities, and criminal organizations. Another defining feature is their constant transformation and internal diversity, which makes it analytically inadequate to treat them as a singular, homogeneous category.

Following these characteristics, Rio de Janeiro’s peripheries are located predominantly in areas that some authors describe as the “metropolitan periphery,” encompassing municipalities within the Rio de Janeiro Metropolitan Region (Abreu, 1987; Abreu and Bronstein, 1978; Lago and Ribeiro, 1996), as well as the “subúrbios cariocas” (Rio’s suburbs), referring to working-class neighborhoods along the railway lines (Fernandes, 2011), and parts of the city’s western zone. This delimitation does not rely on a geographic notion of periphery as edge or boundary, but rather on an understanding of a historical process of urban space production and segregation.⁹

Building on this conception of the peripheries as historically produced spaces – marked by autoconstruction, territorial contestation, and the action of multiple agents – this article examines different moments in their formation within the Rio de Janeiro metropolis. The following sections analyze three periods identified through a review of the literature on the city’s urbanization: from 1940 to 1979, from 1980 to 2009, and from 2010 to the present. This periodization identifies the main actors involved, the dominant modes of urbanization, and the impacts of these dynamics on the sociospatial organization of these territories.

1940-1979 – Precarious peripheries

The first period coincides with Brazil’s industrialization process, which drew large population contingents to metropolitan areas.¹⁰Lago (2008, p. 44) notes that the suburbs farthest from the center and the municipalities surrounding the capital – understood here as the city’s periphery and the metropolitan periphery – experienced the highest growth rates, surpassing the urban core. This population concentrated primarily in favelas, land subdivisions, and public housing complexes.

Favelas are characterized by the occupation of public or private land by future residents (Santos, 1978). Although they existed prior to 1940, they expanded significantly from this period onward, spreading from central areas to the railway suburbs (Abreu, 1987, p. 106) – defined in this article as the city’s periphery. Despite their strong presence in the urban imaginary, only 12.3% of migrants who arrived in the city during the 1940s settled in favelas (Parisse apud Abreu, 1987, p. 107). The most significant population growth occurred in the periphery and the metropolitan region, where land subdivisions predominated – plots subdivided and sold by developers at affordable prices and through installment payments (Segadas Soares, 1962, p. 233).¹¹

Although distinct, Fernandes (2000, pp. 104-107) identifies important convergences between favelas and land subdivisions. First, both involve forms of illegality and irregularity regarding land subdivision, land occupation, and housing construction. Second, they share precarious urban and socioeconomic conditions, including limited infrastructure and services, as well as long distances from employment centers. Finally, residents produce both through autoconstruction over an extended period. As Caldeira (2017) observes, even in land subdivisions – where developers play a formal role – residents remain the primary agents of urbanization, building their homes, streets, and neighborhoods while mobilizing for collective goods.

Although favelas and land subdivisions constituted the predominant modes of urbanization in Rio’s peripheries during this period, they were not the only ones. State--led public housing complexes also played a significant role. During the first eleven years of the military dictatorship (1964-1975), the Brazilian federal government initiated a radical process of favela removals, particularly in central and southern areas of the city.¹² As an alternative for displaced populations, the federal government, with financial support from the United States through the Agency for International Development (USAID),¹³ constructed large public housing complexes on the urban periphery, distant from employment centers and often lacking basic infrastructure (Leeds and Leeds, 1978, p. 220).

These three modes of urbanization – favelas, land subdivisions, and public housing complexes – and the agents involved, including residents, developers, and the state, played a crucial role in consolidating a “peripheral growth pattern” (Abreu and Bronstein, 1978; Santos, 1978, 1979; Valladares and Santos, 1983; Vetter, 1981), also referred to as “peripheralization” (Valladares, 1983, p. 25). This pattern is characterized by the segregation of poorer populations into underserved peripheral areas, while more privileged social groups remain in central areas better supplied with infrastructure and services, thereby structuring the center – periphery model.¹⁴

1980-2009 – Diverse and polarized peripheries

The second period is marked by an economic crisis that produced significant changes in both the agents and the patterns of urbanization in the peripheries. Amid economic contraction, segments of the middle class began seeking housing in peripheral areas, where property values were more affordable. This migration spurred the emergence of new real estate developments targeting this population, such as gated communities, implemented both in consolidated peripheries and in new expansion zones (Britto, 1990, p. 160).

This process introduced a new dynamic: real estate development firms emerged as central agents of urbanization, acquiring and subdividing land while also constructing and marketing housing units. Unlike the developers of the previous period – who primarily sold plots through installment plans at low prices – these firms raised prices and shortened payment terms, thereby restricting access to land to more affluent segments of the population (Lago, 2008, p. 110).

Backed by their own capital and credit from Caixa Econômica Federal, these companies assumed a dominant role in the real estate market, which had previously been controlled by small-scale speculators. As Furlanetto, Cruz, and Almeida (1987) and Britto (1990) observe, most new developments were located in central areas of municipalities within the metropolitan region and in parts of the city’s periphery already equipped with urban infrastructure (water, electricity, sewage, paving). In these areas, condominiums replaced earlier autoconstructed housing and began to attract higher-income groups, producing “[...] an expansion based on the renewal of the built environment” (Lago, 2008, p. 110).

Rising land values in Rio de Janeiro’s peripheries reduced the number of new land subdivisions, pushed their implementation to more distant and precarious areas, and transformed both land acquisition practices and the role of developers. In many cases, these agents began to “[...] manage the process of illegal occupations of a tract of land to be appropriated by a group of people” (Lago and Ribeiro, 1996, pp. 46-47). Land was sold through short installment plans, while urbanization works remained the responsibility of residents themselves (ibid.). These developments, termed “clandestine condominiums” by Lago and Ribeiro (1996), are characterized by developers taking on new roles – as managers and technical assistants – and by residents’ awareness of the irregular and illegal nature of the process (Lago, 2003).

At the same time, the state-level economic crisis deepened poverty and restricted low-income families’ access to land purchases, stimulating the emergence of another form of irregular subdivision, which Valladares and Kayat (1983, p. 1) termed “organized land invasions.” Responsible for the urbanization of much of the metropolitan periphery of Rio de Janeiro during the 1980s and 1990s (Leitão et al., 2016, p. 14), these developments involved groups collectively organizing to seize idle land. Maricato (1999, p. 17) notes that although they involved land invasions, such experiences cannot be classified as favelas, since – unlike the gradual and individual occupations typical of favelas – they consisted of planned collective actions carried out at once. Nor do they fit the category of clandestine condominiums, as they initially involved no commercialization of plots and, although they had central leadership, these actors did not perform the role of developers.

These alternatives, however, proved insufficient to meet the growing demand for housing in the Rio de Janeiro metropolis, which was largely absorbed by favelas through a process known as the “peripheralization of the favela” or “favela expansion” (Lago, 2008, p. 112; Ribeiro, 2015, p. 28). This phenomenon was particularly pronounced in the city’s periphery, which during the same period concentrated 66.8% of favela residents (ibid.). Favela expansion occurred in two ways: through the densification of existing favelas and through the formation of new ones, both within the city and in the metropolitan periphery, where this type of settlement had previously been absent. Importantly, this growth took place during the country’s democratization process, when removals became politically costly because they could result in electoral losses given the size of the favela population (Burgos, 2014).¹⁵ In this context, the modes of favela production also changed: as Lago (2003, p. 128) and Araujo Silva (2018, p. 10) indicate, some favelas began to emerge from land invasions facilitated – and in some cases coordinated – by local politicians in exchange for electoral support.

This period of urbanization in Rio’s peripheries brought together multiple modes of spatial production – middle-class condominiums, land subdivisions, clandestine condominiums, favelas, and organized land invasions – producing new sociospatial effects. Among them, the entry of the middle class into peripheral areas introduced greater socioeconomic diversity while simultaneously pushing poorer populations into even less developed zones. Ribeiro and Lago (1995) describe this process as the internal reproduction of the “peripheral growth pattern,” whereby certain consolidated peripheral areas began to accommodate higher--income groups and receive infrastructure and service investments, intensifying processes of internal segregation.

Ribeiro and Ribeiro (2015) argue that although the sociospatial structure of the peripheries became more complex, it did not break with the core–periphery model that characterized the previous period. Instead, this model incorporated elements of diversification – through the spread of middle-income groups into gated communities within the metropolis – and polarization, expressed in the concentration of popular classes in increasingly precarious peripheries and of elites in the metropolitan core, where public investments in infrastructure and services remained more intense.¹⁶

2010-Present – Peripheries of arbitrary selectivity

Because this period is still unfolding, it is difficult to identify with precision the patterns of urbanization and sociospatial organization shaping the peripheries in this third phase. Nevertheless, two main trends can be observed: the transformations generated by the introduction of the Minha Casa Minha Vida Federal Housing Program (MCMV) in 2009, and the direct involvement of criminal groups – especially milícias – in urban production. The following sections examine these two dynamics separately.

The MCMV Program in Rio de Janeiro

The MCMV was created to stimulate the economy through the construction sector, generating employment and sustaining consumption (Cardoso, Mello and Jaenisch, 2015). The program established a public–private partnership in which construction companies were responsible for selecting land, defining development typologies, adopting construction technologies, determining the target income groups, and executing the projects. Municipal governments, in turn, were tasked with approving projects, adapting urban legislation, and selecting beneficiaries (ibid., p. 74).

Within this arrangement, the private sector consolidated its position as one of the main agents of urbanization in Brazil’s peripheries, guided by a logic of profit maximization. This was reflected in the selection of cheaper land – generally located in peripheral areas lacking infrastructure – standardized construction practices, and the adoption of the condominium model, which allows for more intensive land use (Cardoso and Jaenisch, 2014; Cardoso, Mello and Jaenisch, 2015).

The case of Rio de Janeiro is particularly paradigmatic because the implementation of the program coincided with a broader cycle of urban restructuring linked to global mega-events – such as the 2014 FIFA World Cup and the 2016 Summer Olympic Games (Cardoso, Mello and Jaenisch, 2015; Faulhaber and Azevedo, 2015; Santos Junior and Novaes, 2016). In this context, MCMV operated not merely as a housing policy but became embedded within a wider project of urban transformation. Under the justification of infrastructure works and risk mitigation, the municipal government initiated an intense wave of removals in informal settlements located in areas designated to host these events – particularly the Olympic Games – such as the port region, the city center, the South Zone, and Barra da Tijuca, while also affecting consolidated peripheral areas such as Madureira and Deodoro (Santos Junior and Novaes, 2016, p. 23). As Cavalcanti (2023) observes, the federal program ultimately became integrated into a “large eviction machine” that displaced more than 70,000 people – surpassing the number of removals carried out in the 1960s and 1970s (Comitê Popular da Copa e Olimpíadas do Rio de Janeiro, 2014).

As a result, Rio de Janeiro became the epicenter of MCMV housing production in the state: by 2014, 56.9% of contracted units were located in the city, and nearly half (48.3%) were concentrated in the West Zone – the most distant periphery (Cardoso and Jaenisch, 2014, pp. 9-11). This process disrupted the democratic governance practices and the right-to-the-city agenda that had characterized the previous period by reinstating removal practices similar to those of the mid-twentieth century, when displaced populations were resettled in large peripheral housing complexes (Cardoso, Mello and Jaenisch, 2015, p. 77). The combination of removals from central areas, the promotion of homeownership through indebtedness, and the peripheral location of MCMV condominiums did not produce a new sociospatial reorganization; rather, it reinforced the existing logic that associates peripheries with “popular territories” (Lago and Cardoso, 2015).

Typologies of residential real estate developments produced by milícias

Alongside the broader process of urban transformation underway in the city, another process had been consolidating since the late 1990s in Rio de Janeiro’s peripheries: the direct involvement of criminal groups – particularly milícias – in the urbanization of these territories. This involvement became more robust and visible as these criminal organizations expanded across the metropolis from the mid-2000s onward (Hirata et al., 2022), which is why they are included in this phase of the periodization.

Drawing on research in the archives of the newspaper O Globo,¹⁷ an analysis of recent scholarship, and fieldwork conducted in a municipality in the Baixada Fluminense, this study identified three recurring typologies of residential real estate developments created or appropriated by milícias in Rio’s peripheries (Coli, 2022).

The first typology involves the seizure of public or private land, followed by the construction of houses, apartment buildings, or commercial establishments intended for sale or rent. The second consists of the creation of illegal land subdivisions on similarly seized land, where members or intermediaries of the criminal organization sell or donate plots, and buyers subsequently build their homes through autoconstruction. The third involves the occupation and expropriation of government-subsidized housing units, such as those developed under the MCMV program. In these cases, milícias seize certain apartments for resale and often construct informal annexes (puxadinhos) in vacant areas of housing complexes, later renting them as residential or commercial units.

These three typologies are not new in the history of peripheral urbanization in Rio de Janeiro. Illegal land subdivisions, the construction of housing and commercial buildings on occupied land, and the sale or expansion of units within social housing developments have appeared at various moments of metropolitan expansion. What distinguishes the present is the role of milícias as central and permanent agents of this urban production, representing a departure from earlier periods.

At first glance, milícias may resemble land grabbers, land subdivision developers, small- -scale real estate entrepreneurs, or even local residents. Unlike these actors, however, they maintain continuous control over the territories, acting as “managers” or “owners,” as Araujo Silva (2018, 2019) suggests.

Two main factors sustain this position. The first is their “political advantage” (Hirata et al., 2022), derived from the structural relationship they maintain with the state. Because their membership includes public agents and elected officials, milícias benefit from a degree of institutional legitimacy and tolerance from security forces (Arias, 2018; Lessing, 2021).

The second factor concerns their ambivalent relationship with residents in the areas they control, characterized simultaneously by legitimation – through the provision of security and local improvements – and coercion, often sustained by armed presence and localized enforcement practices. This combination of consent and coercion secures their permanence and authority in the territories under their control.

From this advantageous position, milícias impose behavioral rules, restrict political competition, charge fees for services, and monopolize the provision of urban goods.¹⁸ These practices are frequently reported in so--called “milícia areas,” territories under the control of these criminal organizations. This article emphasizes, however, that everyday control is more intense within real estate developments created or appropriated by these groups, where territorial boundaries are more clearly defined – whether by walls and fences or by natural and infrastructural barriers such as rivers and roads.

Whereas control in broader milícia areas tends to be diffuse and mediated through resident registration in neighborhood associations (Alerj, 2008), real estate developments involve formally delimited territories directly subordinated to the organization’s authority. As Coli (2025) shows, this spatial distinction is fundamental to understanding how control materializes in everyday life.

The research identified various forms of control and regulation within these developments, presented here as illustrative examples rather than an exhaustive account, given the diversity and dynamism of Brazilian milícias. In some cases, evangelical-oriented milícias restrict the presence of Afro-Brazilian religions within their developments. During fieldwork conducted in 2019, it was possible to visit a land subdivision built and administered by one such group, whose internal regulations reflected similar practices. In this development, all internal streets bore biblical names – an element that, taken in isolation, would not necessarily indicate religious repression, but which, combined with other evidence, reveals a selective occupation process. In an interview, the head of the residents’ association stated, “only Christians are allowed here,”¹⁹ explicitly articulating the ideological and religious control exercised over who may reside in the area.

In other cases, milícias prohibit drug trafficking and drug use within MCMV condominiums under their control, presenting themselves as “guardians of public order” (Araujo Silva, 2018, p. 12). Under this moral justification, they regulate aspects of residents’ daily lives, such as curfews, and mediate interpersonal conflicts, including family disputes and disagreements among neighbors (Cano and Duarte, 2012). Beyond social regulation, political control is also common: they frequently prevent the entry and campaigning of candidates not aligned with their interests – a practice documented by the Parliamentary Commission of Inquiry (CPI) on milícias (Alerj, 2008), the press (Souza, 2020), and recent studies (Hidalgo and Lessing, 2015; Santos Junior et al., 2022b).

Fees vary according to the development and the type of milícia administering it and may include charges related to condominium maintenance, security, autoconstruction, and the sale or rental of properties. In an interview, a resident of an MCMV condominium dominated by milicianos in the Baixada Fluminense reported: “They took over the association – the condominium – and raised the condo fee, which was seventy [reais], now it’s two hundred.”²⁰

All real estate transactions are commonly registered with the residents’ association – typically controlled by milicianos. In some cases, the association charges a percentage of the property’s value in any real estate transaction (Benmergui and Gonçalves, 2019). There are also records of fees charged for basic services such as gas, cable television, transportation, electricity, water, and others (Manso, 2020, p. 101). Milícias may monopolize these services and, in some cases, impose prices above market rates while preventing competition (Hirata et al., 2021).

Residents and business owners who fail to comply with these rules or cannot afford the imposed costs are often forced to leave their properties – even when they hold legal title. This mode of spatial production reinforces hierarchies and inequalities by institutionalizing selective practices of belonging and access to the city. The following section deepens this discussion by examining how these dynamics contribute to the configuration of contemporary “peripheries of arbitrary selectivity.”

Trends in the current sociospatial organization

The current period of peripheral urbanization reveals two contradictory trends. The first is the consolidation of the peripheries as “popular territories,” resulting from the combination of removals associated with mega-events and the expansion of the MCMV program. The second, more recent and not yet quantified, is the emergence of mechanisms of arbitrary selectivity imposed by criminal organizations such as milícias. The term “arbitrary” refers to the fact that these norms do not follow formal standards or official regulations; rather, they vary from one organization to another and incorporate political, behavioral, or religious criteria – distinguishing this form of selection from traditional forms of segregation based solely on income or purchasing power.

The first trend can be observed by correlating two sets of data: the location of MCMV condominiums and the removals carried out prior to the city’s mega-events – a process extensively documented by Faulhaber and Azevedo (2015). Removals in central areas, the expansion of homeownership through indebtedness, and the peripheral siting of MCMV developments produced a sociospatial reconfiguration that reinforced the peripheries as “popular territories.”

The second trend has not yet been captured in statistical datasets but is advanced here as a hypothesis, based on the territorial scale of milícia control in Rio de Janeiro, their involvement in real estate production, and the analysis of numerous cases of resident expulsions within their territories. The examples presented below – like the regulatory mechanisms previously discussed – are not intended to be exhaustive but rather to illustrate the existence of arbitrary selection in spaces produced and managed by milícia.

The final report of the Parliamentary Commission of Inquiry (CPI) on milícias (Alerj, 2008) already documented cases of expulsions targeting individuals linked to other criminal organizations (such as relatives, friends, and employees), as well as residents unable to pay imposed fees. According to the report, these expulsions primarily sought to preserve territorial control vis-à-vis competing criminal groups. The most evident cases therefore involved the coercive removal of individuals associated with rival organizations.

There are also economically motivated cases reported in the CPI report, academic research, and journalistic investigations. The following account, published in O Globo in 2020 (Regueira, 2020), describes a resident expelled by a milícia due to his inability to pay the required fees:

The head of the milícia came to my house twice with his henchmen. They forced me to pay a certain fee and said it was for milícia security. Because I didn’t have the money to pay, they expelled me from my home with my children, with only the clothes on our backs. [...] Dozens of residents were expelled from their homes and some from their businesses for not having the money to pay the fees imposed by the milícia. These cowards destroyed my life and my family’s life.

Similar accounts appear in the research by Cano and Duarte (2012, p. 90):

If they don’t pay – like, for example, the pot seller – I heard that the pot seller sells his pots there and all that, and they have to pay to work inside. Then they end up being expelled; if they’re residents, they get expelled. They even keep the house and the belongings and send the person away.

The logic of coercion and intimidation also affects legal property owners. In an interview with the newspaper Extra (Marinatto and Soares, 2015), a resident of an MCMV apartment reports:

It all started because I refused to go along with them. Once they found out about my job, they increased the pressure. Luckily, they feared that killing someone even minimally connected to the state would cause repercussions. My main goal today is to request a new home… but it wasn’t just me. Hundreds of people have the same story.

There are also cases of expulsions linked to noncompliance with imposed social norms regarding drug consumption and trafficking, as well as religious and sexual orientation. One example is the frequent expulsion of practitioners of Afro-Brazilian religions in Duque de Caxias. According to the Commission to Combat Religious Intolerance (CCIR), 53 places of worship were forced to close in the city in 2019 (Ballousier, 2020). In an interview with O Globo (Trigueiro, 2020), the son of a mãe de santo reported being advised by milicianos to leave the area: “They told us to take my mother away. So she left – we took her – and to this day we haven’t been able to return or carry out any activities there.”

Even when expulsions do not occur, the behavior of residents in these developments indicates that those who do not fit the expected “resident profile” may lose their homes or even their lives. An illustrative example is the fear experienced by members of the LGBTQIA+ community regarding housing in areas controlled by milícias. During fieldwork conducted for this research, a social movement representative recounted a significant case: a young gay man sought assistance in finding shelter in an occupation organized by the movement in the Baixada Fluminense. He had received an MCMV apartment but feared losing his property or facing reprisals if his sexual orientation were discovered by the local milícia.

There was this guy – still young and single – who got [an MCMV housing unit] in the complex. He said the milícia was taking everything. They would pass in front of the building with guns, intimidating residents, and he was gay, so he was very afraid.²¹

These cases, not yet systematized in statistical datasets, indicate that residents unable to bear the imposed costs or unwilling to conform to the social, religious, or behavioral standards enforced are forced to leave – even when they are legal property owners. Such dynamics suggest that expulsions promoted by milícias are not limited to economic criteria but involve multiple dimensions of control over who may remain in the territories under their authority.

Thus, in the current period, while the state and the market reorganize the city by displacing lower-income populations to increasingly distant peripheries, milícias reconfigure these territories internally through their own mechanisms of regulation and control. This is not merely a continuation of sociospatial segregation based on income and location, but the emergence of armed forms of territorial governance that condition access to housing and the right to remain in a given territory on moral, political, religious, and behavioral criteria. This process introduces a dynamic of internal segmentation in which belonging is no longer defined solely by purchasing power but by conformity to locally imposed norms enforced by non-state actors. Contemporary peripheries thus become not only spaces of concentration of lower-income populations but territories of arbitrary selectivity.

A new dynamic of segregation

The periodization proposed based on the literature on urbanization in Rio de Janeiro reveals that, despite their socioeconomic diversity, the peripheries have historically been shaped by processes of segregation affecting lower-income populations. This literature also highlights the key agents and modes of urbanization²² involved in the formation of these territories.

This study, however, argues that the involvement of milícias in the production of space adds an additional layer of complexity to the sociospatial organization of the metropolitan peripheries. Although their real estate developments combine characteristics and mechanisms typical of earlier forms of peripheral urbanization, the advantageous position they derive from privileged relationships with the state and the systematic use of coercion distinguishes milícias from other agents of peripheral urbanization. This position facilitates the imposition of rules and fees, establishing a dynamic of sociospatial segregation that is qualitatively distinct from previous ones. This occurs because such rules increasingly incorporate behavioral, moral, religious, political, and sexual-orientation criteria, restricting the profile of residents and expelling those who do not conform.

As discussed above, some studies suggest that expulsions may be linked to territorial control and capital accumulation through the sale, rental, or re-subdivision of properties. However, the accounts analyzed in this research indicate that such practices may transcend strictly economic objectives.²³ This article proposes that, by expelling residents, milícias carry out a form of “socioeconomic filtering” that produces a specific public suited to sustaining their economic and political interests. Consequently, milícias may be transforming peripheries – previously understood as popular territories – into selective territories. In these spaces, even individuals capable of affording housing costs – whether renting or owning – and who do not pose an apparent threat to the organization may, in some cases, be compelled to relocate and seek alternative housing.

This article further argues that the real estate developments produced and managed by milícias are crucial for the effective operation of this selectivity. Because they are marked by more rigid physical boundaries, such as walls, or subtler ones, such as high-traffic roads, these developments enable more precise territorial control than that observed in so-called “milícia areas,” whose limits are more diffuse.²⁴ In this sense, such developments produce internal borders within the peripheries. Here, borders are not understood as simple divisions but as dispositifs that regulate flows and control forms of communication between what lies inside and outside (Feltran, 2020). These developments thus regulate circulation and create distinctions among social groups, potentially fostering conflict among them.

Based on the arguments presented, this article proposes several hypotheses regarding the effects of this selectivity. The first concerns the likely high turnover in these properties. Given the income instability affecting many residents of the peripheries, expulsions motivated by inability to pay may be frequent. The second hypothesis concerns the possible social homogenization within milícia developments: residents’ continued presence would depend on conformity to the organization’s norms or on the ability to conceal divergence. Although these norms vary, research points to the conservative character of milícias (Junior, Corrêa and Rodrigues, 2023), which tends to shape both resident selection and their political choices and internal associational practices.

This social and economic homogeneity may generate a sense of internal cohesion and rejection of the “other,” leading to a third hypothesis: the potential adherence of residents to, and defense of, the exclusionary model implemented. A testimony from a resident of an MCMV condominium interviewed in the course of this research illustrates how milícias mobilize such adherence to approve condominium rules that result in the expulsion of numerous residents, as in the case of increased condominium fees:

For example, the condominium fee – it’s a rule voted on by the residents who are allowed to vote, that is, those who are not in arrears. Because the rule is this: if you miss a payment once, you can’t vote. Twice, there’s a 50% monthly fine on top. That woman [the interviewee’s neighbor] had a debt of three thousand and – she already sold! Sold the apartment. [...] So everyone is leaving! They’re pushing some poorer residents out of the development and another class is moving in – it’s gentrification! But think about it, they created a form of territorial control that is technically legal because everything is formalized, there’s voting.²⁵

In sum, the role of milícias as agents of peripheral urbanization introduces a dynamic of segregation that further complexifies sociospatial organization by articulating coercion, precise territorial control, and moral, political, and behavioral criteria in the selection of residents. This “arbitrary selectivity” not only redefines who may remain in these developments but may also be producing internal borders, encouraging high turnover, fostering social homogenization, and strengthening residents’ adherence to the exclusionary regime in place.

Final remarks

This article has examined a specific aspect of milícia activity: the potential effects of their residential developments on the sociospatial organization of Rio de Janeiro’s peripheries. The interpretations presented here should be understood as exploratory hypotheses, formulated on the basis of direct and indirect empirical evidence derived from both field observation and documentary and bibliographic sources. These hypotheses suggest the possible formation of selective boundaries within such developments, whose political and social implications remain insufficiently understood and require more systematic investigation by both academia and public authorities.

Based on the arguments discussed, several questions emerge to guide future research. If the peripheries of Brazilian metropolises have historically been understood as territories of “insurgent citizenship” (Holston, 2009b) – spaces in which autoconstruction and everyday negotiations with the state produced fissures in “entrenched citizenship” – it becomes necessary to ask how, or even whether, insurgent practices might emerge in developments created or co--opted by milícias, where governance is often characterized by coercion, surveillance, and behavioral regulation. Likewise, by suggesting that milícias operate as agents of urbanization, this study raises the question of the extent to which such developments could sustain forms of collective political innovation, such as the emergence of social movements historically associated with urbanization processes in various parts of Latin America (Castells, 1983). Although these remain preliminary hypotheses, it is important to consider what forms of mobilization might be possible in these contexts and which structural constraints would condition their emergence.

Considering also the involvement of milícias in institutional politics and suspicions regarding the formation of electoral strongholds (Hidalgo and Lessing, 2015; Santos Junior et al., 2022b), another speculative question remains open: what electoral effects might the expansion of this model of territorial occupation produce within the metropolis, whether through the filtering of resident profiles or through the production of dependencies, loyalties, or enforced political alignments.

By advancing these hypotheses and questions, this article seeks to underscore their importance both for understanding the transformations currently underway in the peripheries of Rio de Janeiro and for situating them within a broader national and international debate that has increasingly highlighted the role of criminal organizations in the production of space. In different countries, studies have shown how armed groups and illicit economies intervene in real estate markets, control infrastructure, and establish their own forms of territorial governance, effectively acting as agents of urbanization (Canettieri and Coli, 2026; Coli, 2025; Kawahara, 2024; Moncada, 2016; Prieto and Verdi, 2023; Weinstein, 2008). Within this broader scenario, the questions raised here acquire particular relevance: they point to the urgency of rethinking contemporary urbanization in light of actors that escape the classical categories of urban studies, planning, and public policy.

Acknowledgments

This article does not form part of my doctoral dissertation, but it engages with questions and empirical evidence that emerged from research conducted between 2017 and 2025. Its central argument developed through discussions held at different academic events. An earlier version was presented at the International Seminar on Urban Studies and Interdisciplinarity, organized by Unifesp (2021). Subsequent versions were discussed at the XIX National Meeting of Anpur (Enanpur), the Association of Collegiate Schools of Planning Conference (ACSP), and the American Association of Geographers Annual Conference (AAG), all in 2022. I thank the participants in these events for their discussions and suggestions, especially Miguel Pérez, Clara Irazábal, and Gustavo Prieto. I also thank colleagues Giselle Mendonça Abreu, Thiago Canettieri, and Luísa Gonçalves for their valuable comments and revisions to this and earlier versions of the article. Finally, I thank the two anonymous reviewers for their contributions, which strengthened the argument presented here.

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Notes

• 1
  Recent studies have identified the involvement of other criminal organizations in Brazil – such as drug trafficking commands – in the production of urban space (Canettieri and Coli, 2026; Prieto and Verdi, 2023). This article, however, does not extend the analysis to these groups, given the differences in their modes of operation, territorial bases, and relationships with the state, which would require a distinct theoretical and methodological framework.
• 2
  Among other factors, this is due to the arbitrariness of the control regimes exercised by criminal organizations such as milícias.
• 3
  This periodization coincides with the years in which the media began using the term milícias to designate security agents who charged residents fees under the justification of protecting them from drug trafficking.
• 4
  All personal and place names related to the field research have been withheld to protect the identities of the interlocutors who contributed to the study.
• 5
  This category was developed through a review of the literature on milícias in Brazil, archival research in the newspaper O Globo, and fieldwork conducted in a municipality in the Baixada Fluminense. While acknowledging the presence of milícias in different regions of the country, the conceptual proposal draws primarily on the analysis of dynamics observed in the context of Rio de Janeiro.
• 6
  Although this study adopts a broad definition of milícias, this expanded scope does not constitute a conceptual problem; rather, it reflects an analytical requirement imposed by the transformations these criminal organizations have undergone. This comprehensive definition makes it possible to capture their internal heterogeneity and to identify emerging subcategories – such as “territory-producing milícias” (Coli, 2025) – that help explain the diversity of strategies, compositions, and modes of operation present in the contemporary context.
• 7
  There is growing evidence that the assassination of Marielle Franco, in March 2018, is directly linked to land grabbing dynamics in Rio de Janeiro’s West Zone – land that milícias or allied local actors were appropriating in disputes with residents’ interests and land regularization efforts (Caso Marielle, 2024).
• 8
  Although there is evidence of drug trafficking groups’ involvement in the production of urban space, recent research indicates that the scale and intensity of milícia activity are significantly greater in the Rio de Janeiro context. Hirata et al. (2021, pp. 19-20), for example, show that a large share of licensed housing units in the municipality of Rio de Janeiro overlaps with areas where milícias operate, reinforcing these groups’ central role in contemporary processes of peripheral urbanization.
• 9
  By defining Rio de Janeiro’s peripheries in these terms, this article aligns with efforts by scholars in Critical Urban Theory who conceptualize the periphery not as a specific location, but as a provisional condition produced through historical processes of precarization (Caldeira, 2017; Simone, 2004).
• 10
  In Rio de Janeiro, then the nation’s capital, the city’s population stood at 1.8 million in 1940, while the state as a whole had 3.6 million inhabitants. By 1970, the city’s population had increased to 4.3 million, and the state’s to 9.1 million (IBGE, Sinopse do Censo Demográfico de 2010).
• 11
  According to Holston (2009a, p. 209), Brazilian peripheries predominantly exhibit three types of land subdivision: irregular, clandestine, and fraudulent. An irregular land subdivision refers to land held by a legal owner that violates one or more regulatory requirements governing land parceling. A clandestine land subdivision involves legitimately owned land that has not been formally registered with the appropriate property registry. Finally, a fraudulent land subdivision entails the sale of land by a grileiro – a land grabber who lacks legal title but falsely claims ownership.
• 12
  Burgos (2014, p. 38) argues that favela removals pursued two main objectives: to free up high-value urban areas for real estate speculation and to dismantle the political mobilization of favela residents.
• 13
  USAID, created in 1961 by John F. Kennedy, was the principal U.S. government agency dedicated to international cooperation and development assistance in the Global South. In the context of the Cold War, its activities sought to contain socialism through modernization policies and technical assistance. During the 1960s and 1970s, it maintained a strong presence in Brazil, financing master plans and housing programs, establishing partnerships with universities and planning agencies, and disseminating technocratic approaches to urban planning.
• 14
  Although the city of Rio de Janeiro may appear exceptional due to the presence of favelas in wealthier areas, Lago (2008, p. 25) emphasizes that, within this dual model, the existence of favelas in central areas was incorporated – explicitly or implicitly – as a residual phenomenon relative to peripheral expansion. Consequently, favelas did not disrupt the spatial duality characteristic of the peripheral pattern of urbanization.
• 15
  Moreover, the restoration of democratic rule strengthened a range of social movements advocating the right to remain in the places where they lived (Santos, 1981). In response to pressure from these movements – and mindful of the electoral potential of favelas – the state initiated a process of validation, recognizing and removing obstacles to the creation and expansion of existing settlements (Lago, 2008, p. 114).
• 16
  Several studies point to increased public investment in infrastructure in peripheral areas as early as the twentieth century (Torres and Marques, 2001). However, these investments were insufficient to disrupt the core–periphery pattern of sociospatial organization (Lago and Cardoso, 2015; Ribeiro and Ribeiro, 2015).
• 17
  The archival research conducted in the newspaper O Globo covered articles published between 2006 – when the term milícia began to be used to describe security agents who charged residents fees under the justification of protecting them from drug trafficking – and 2020, the year this stage of the investigation was completed. The search was carried out using combined keywords, including milícia and land subdivisions, MCMV, houses, buildings, condominiums, shops, and real estate developments, in order to identify references to different forms of real estate production associated with the activities of these groups.
• 18
  Research indicates that in areas controlled by drug trafficking organizations, rules and fees also regulate the lives of populations living under such forms of “siege” (Carvalho, Rocha e Motta, 2023; Manso, 2023).
• 19
  Interview with the head of the residents’ association in a land subdivision in the Baixada Fluminense, conducted by the author on July 18, 2019.
• 20
  Interview with a resident of an MCMV housing development in a neighborhood in the Baixada Fluminense, conducted by the author on March 20, 2020.
• 21
  Interview with a representative of a social movement in the Baixada Fluminense, conducted by the author on February 10, 2022.
• 22
  It is important to note that these agents and modes are not the only ones, but they are the most relevant according to the literature review.
• 23
  This argument is developed in greater depth in Coli (2025).
• 24
  This argument is developed in greater depth in Coli (2025).
• 25
  Interview with a resident of an MCMV housing development in a neighborhood in the Baixada Fluminense, conducted by the author on June 26, 2019.
• Data availability statement:
  All supporting data for the results of this study were published in the article itself.

• Editors:
  Lucia Bógus and Luiz César de Queiroz Ribeiro

• Organizers of this issue:
  Ana Marcela Ardila Pinto, Carlos Fernando Ferreira Lobo, Natália Villamizar Duarte

Data availability

All supporting data for the results of this study were published in the article itself.

Publication Dates

• Publication in this collection
  29 May 2026
• Date of issue
  May-Aug 2026

History

• Received
  15 Dec 2023
• Accepted
  23 Oct 2024