in 1960 brasilia became the capital of brasil, causing rio de janeiro to lose much of the federal funding that came with being the capital of the nation - this was the beginning of a long period of scant resources and limited ability to implement social plans, restructuring, and urbanization.

In the 1960s Carlos Lacerda, the first elected governor of the now extinct state of Guanabara, later incorporated in the state of rio de janeiro, began an movement in which uninhabited areas on urban maps were replaced with areas of high-end real estate developments.

following this plan,  the residents of favelas occupying valuable land were transferred to less valuable, peripheral regions of the city, while those who resided under bridges, on riverbanks, in wetlands and on the hills were mostly ignored.