Using and compiling literature on various topics, Valladares seeks to confirm the growing importance of the favelas in social imagination, informed discourse and urban practice of the period.

This work looks to reveal the way in which the social construction of the favela took place, at a time when knowledge and action were inseparable, At a time also when the focus was on the future of the Republic, the health of society, national sanitation and the beautification of the landscape.

Using speeches from each period and examining a variety of perspectives and interpretations made by journalists, doctors, engineers and city planners, Valladares attempts to show that the social construction of the settlements took root before the social sciences came into play.