Draft:Janice Elaine Perlman

• Comment: YouTube is not generally a reliable source and interviews are not independent sources. Theroadislong (talk) 21:19, 20 December 2024 (UTC)

• Comment: she may well be notable but this is woefully short on independent reliable sources. Theroadislong (talk) 18:36, 20 December 2024 (UTC)

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Janice Elaine Perlman
Born	1943 New York City, New York, USA
Alma mater	Cornell University (BA), Massachusetts Institute of Technology (PhD)
Known for	Research and policy on Global Urbanization, Informal Settlements; Founder of The Mega-Cities Project
Spouses	Frederick Charles Spreyer, Jr. (m. 1988; died 2015)
Scientific career
Fields	Urban Studies, Cultural Anthropology, Social Sciences

Janice Perlman (born July 12, 1943) is an American urban research scholar, policy advisor and global non-profit leader... Her work bridges the worlds of research, practice and public policy. She is often referred to as “the next Jane Jacobs” because of her writing and advocacy from a bottom-up perspective. Her work has contributed to shaping global understanding and policy approaches towards marginalized urban populations in Brazil and internationally.  

Janice is recognized for her groundbreaking research on global urbanization and the growth of the informal sector. She holds a Ph.D. in Political Science and Urban Studies from MIT and a B.A. in Anthropology and Latin American Studies from Cornell University. Her seminal book, The Myth of Marginality: Urban Politics and Poverty in Rio de Janeiro (UC Press), won the C. Wright Mills Award in 1976 and was selected as number one of the five “Best books on the economy as if people mattered” in 2023. It is based on her experience living in three favelas (informal settlements) in Rio de Janeiro from 1968 to 1969, where she conducted in-depth life history interviews with 750 residents, most of them migrants from rural villages.

That work was among the earliest contributions to a paradigm shift from seeing the self-built communities as the problem to recognizing them as part of the solution.

Thirty years later, she returned to Rio to find and interview the original participants, their children and grandchildren. The results of this longitudinal study were published as FAVELA: Four Decades of Living on the Edge in Rio de Janeiro (Oxford University Press, 2010). This book won the 2010 Publisher’s PROSE Award in two separate categories.

Her most recent article on this topic, “From Demon to Darling: Child of the Dark or Model for Sustainable Cities? Fifty years of perception, policy and reality in Rio’s favelas”. It will appear in the forthcoming book on the legacy of John Turner on community-led housing (University College London Press, 2025). The book is the result of a panel presented in the World Urban Forum in 2024 in Cairo, Egypt.

Perlman was an early fighter for the shift  in policy to upgrading informal settlements on-site rather than eradicating them and removing the residents to remote public housing. As a consultant to international development agencies, including the World Bank, the Inter American Development Bank, UNDP, UN-Habitat, USAID and others, she had direct influence on their urban agenda.

In 1987, she founded a global non-profit called The Mega-Cities Project whose mission is “shorten the lag time between innovative ideas and implementation in urban problem-solving”. Janice established on-the-ground teams in 20 of the world's largest cities to help identify innovative ideas and share them with other cities.

To do that she gave up her tenured position in the Department of City and Regional Planning at the University of California, Berkeley. After leaving Berkeley, Janice taught in several universities in the U.S. and abroad and developed two innovative educational projects that continue to thrive: 1)  “Cities for the 21st Century” for the International Honors Program, a semester-long travel/study trip to New York, Mumbai, Johannesburg, Rio de Janeiro, Curitiba and Washington DC; and 2) a new undergraduate program on Comparative Urban Studies at Trinity College.

Early life and education

Perlman was born in New York City in 1943. Her grandparents came to the United States from Kiev, Ukraine; Solvalki, Poland and Romania.  Her father was a doctor and her mother a bacteriologist before her children were born. She has one younger brother.  Andy Perlman, who lives in Stanford, CA.

She went to public elementary school  in Forest Hills, Queens until her  parents moved to a newly-created suburb (formerly a potato field) in Roslyn, Long Island, the result of the subsidized mortgages, new highways and low land costs. She graduated from Roslyn High School and went to Cornell to study Applied Anthropology–and because it had the highest percentage of international students.

In 1965 she graduated Magna Cum Laude in Anthropology and Latin American Studies.  She was inducted into honorary societies including Phi Beta Kappa, Phi Kappa Phi, Alpha Kappa Delta, and Alpha Lambda Delta.

Dr. Perlman received  her PhD in Political Science and Urban Studies in 1971 from  the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) with High Honors. Research for her doctoral dissertation,  “The Impact of Urban Experience” was funded by fellowships from the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Mental Health, the International Institute of Education, and the Woodrow Wilson Teaching Scholarship. Her first teaching job, at the University of California, Santa Cruz, began the same year.

Career

Travel and research

In her first semester as a Freshman at Cornell, Perlman was selected to participate in the Latin American Theater Tour, a student cultural exchange organized by The American National Theater Association,  funded by the U.S. Department of State. That first contact with Brazil, specifically with Brazilian university students around the country, where the show was performed, was decisive in her career trajectory.

The following year, 1963, Perlman won a fellowship to participate in an Undergraduate Field Studies in Anthropology program, sponsored by the Carnegie Foundation. She and 5 other undergraduates from Columbia, Harvard, Cornell and Illinois spent three months in remote fishing and agricultural villages in Bahia, a state in Northeast Brazil.

Her research question was how young people develop their worldview and aspirations. She witnessed how a disruptive technology would influence the process of rural-urban migration. Young people who previously wanted only to follow in their parents footsteps, suddenly wanted to go to the big city – where “the action was” – once their village bought the first transistor radio. For her doctoral research, she followed this migratory flow into the favelas of Rio de Janeiro.

Perlman conducted her first in-depth research in Rio de Janeiro's favelas in 1968-69. She lived in three favelas for six months each, interviewing 600 randomly selected residents aged 16-65 and 150 leaders identified through reputational and positional sampling. Conducted at the height of the dictatorship, her work led to accusations that she was an “international agent of subversion,” forcing her to flee the country. In 1970, one of the favelas she studied, Catacumba, was eradicated. In 1973, she re-entered Brazil covertly to investigate what happened to those residents forcibly relocated to public housing in the peripheries. Her 1976 book The Myth of Marginality, showed how misconceptions about favelas provided justification for removal.

In 1999, Perlman returned to Rio to test the viability of locating the surviving original interviewees after 30 years. The results were astonishingly high due to the strong kinship and friendship ties among residents. Over a decade she –and a local team she trained– interviewed hundreds of the original interviewees, then their children and finally their grandchildren. To check her findings for bias she also drew new random and leadership samples in the 3 locations. In total, 3,146 interviews were conducted. This may be the only longitudinal panel study of this scope done in an informal community. This research culminated in the 2010 publication of "Favela: Four Decades of Living on the Edge in Rio de Janeiro," showing changes and continuity over four generations and forty years.

Even before her first study of Rio’s favelas, Perlman conceptualized, organized and co-directed a joint project between US and Brazilian students in two peripheral communities on the outskirts of Recife, Pernambuco. In the summer of 1965 the students lived in Pontezinha and Ponte dos Carvalhos with the intention of conceiving an authentic model for Brazilian development which was neither capitalist nor communist.  It was scheduled to take place in July 1964 in the midst of the  political turmoil. The military coup of April 1, 1964 changed everything. It lasted for 21 years. In 2018 Perlman submitted a proposal for a Fulbright Grant to return to these two semi-rural communities and see how they had been affected by the end of the dictatorship, the nearby industrial port project SUAPE, and the incorporation into the Recife Metro Region. She arrived at the host institution, the   Fundação Joaquim Nabuco, in March 2020, just as COVID-19 was closing the international airports in Brazil. The research was postponed until 2022. The resulting article titled “The more things change, the more they stay the same: Pontezinha and Ponte dos Carvalhos 1965-2022” was published in  2023 in the Revista Ciência & Trópico in  English and Portuguese.

From the mid 1970s to the mid 1980s, when Perlman was banned from Brazil, she continued her research in Europe and the United States. In Europe, she studied urban social movements and participatory planning in London, Copenhagen and Madrid. The edited volume, “Paternalism, Conflict, and Coproduction: Learning from Citizen Action and Citizen Participation in Western Europe,” edited by Lawrence Susskind.

In the late 1970s, when people in the US thought there were no longer community organizations or social movements, Perlman travelled to 16 states across the United States and found out about 60 grassroots groups she had identified. This field study resulted in the publication of the much republished and quoted articles “Grassrooting the System” in 1976 and  “Grassroots Participation from Neighborhood to Nation,” in 1978 and “Grassroots Empowerment and Government Response," in 1979.

As a young professor of Political Science at University of California Santa Cruz, Janice Perlman was invited to China for three months during the Cultural Revolution, a period when access for Western researchers was highly restricted. Her group of ten was the third foreign group allowed to enter the country during this time. As guests of The People’s Republic they visited cities, factories, daycare centers, schools, hospitals and cultural facilities and spent several nights in a commune, giving them a close-up view of China’s moment in time.

Academic career

Janice Perlman’s first academic appointment was at University of California Santa Cruz where she taught from 1971 to 1973. She had a joint appointment in the Boards of Politics and Community Studies. She was then recruited by the Department of City and Regional Planning  at University of California, Berkeley where she taught International Urban Development, Qualitative and Quantitative Research Methods, Public-Private Partnerships and Strategic Planning for Cities, Social Movements and Community Organizations, among other courses. In 1978 she became the first woman to get tenure in that Department.

In order to establish the Mega-Cities Project, Perlman was invited to be a Research Professor at New York University’s Urban Research Center and taught at the Wagner School of Public Service. She was there in various capacities for 11 years.

More recently, Perlman was a Senior Research Scholar at Columbia University's Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation and the Institute of Latin American Studies.  She is now a Senior Fellow and International Urban Research Fellow at the University of Pennsylvania.

Other academic positions include :

• 2011: Prof Haut Niveau (High Level Visiting Professor) at the École Nationale des Ponts et Chaussées, Université Paris - l’Est in the Laboratoire Techniques, Territoires et Sociétés (LATTS).
• 1999-2004: Professor of Comparative Urban Studies at Trinity College.
• 2005-2006: Visiting Professor at Columbia University, Graduate School of Architecture, Planning & Preservation.
• 1999: Creator, Faculty Director, and Professor for the “Cities in the 21st Century” International Honors Program, which started in 1999, involving study-travel semesters in cities like New York, Mumbai, Johannesburg, Cape Town, Rio de Janeiro, and Curitiba.
• 1998-2000: Urban Fellow in the Urban Affairs Program at City University of New York (CUNY), Hunter College.
• Brazilian Universities (1967-2010): Teaching and visiting professor roles at institutions including the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro, Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Getúlio Vargas Foundation, Brazilian Institute of Municipal Administration, and Federal University of Minas Gerais.

The Mega-Cities Project

Janice Perlman is the founder of The Mega-Cities Project (MCP), initiated in 1987 at NYU and formally incorporated as a nonprofit organization 501(c)3 in 1988. The organization's mission is to shorten the lag time between ideas and implementation in urban problem-solving.  MCP created a global network of the world’s largest cities, including New York, Los Angeles, Mumbai, Bangkok, Jakarta, Cairo, Tokyo, Rio de Janeiro and others. Each participating city had a Project Coordinator, a host institution and a steering committee of innovators from each of six sectors: public, private, organized civil society, grassroots groups, academia and the media. Together the city teams created a working definition of urban innovations and a set of criteria for identifying, documenting and disseminating the

most replicable and highest impact experiences. The project supported and brokered the transfer and adaptation of dozens of innovations across communities, cities, countries and regions.   

Policy positions

New York Academy of Sciences: Perlman  was the creator and director of the Science, Technology, and Public Policy Program where she designed four programs and one of which was “Science in the City/ Science of the City” (which was adapted by the Queens Hall of Science”); another on science-intensive dispute resolution among policymakers; and a third on “Megacities and Innovative Technologies”

National Urban Policy: Perlman was the coordinator of the Inter-agency Task Force on Neighborhoods in President Jimmy Carter's administration.

New York City Partnership: She was selected by John C. Whitehead to be Executive Director of Strategic Planning for the newly created NYCP, a consolidation of the Chamber of Commerce and Economic Development Corporation created by David Rockefeller in 1979, in response to the NYC Fiscal Crisis. Her mandate was to create a 10-year blueprint to make NYC a better place to live, work and do business.   

Honors and awards

Perlman has received three Fulbright Awards, two for her longitudinal research in Rio's favelas from 2000-2002 and 2003-2005, and a third award for her research in Recife, Brazil from 2019-2020, in partnership with Fundação Joaquim Nabuco for research in peri-urban areas she had first worked in as a college graduate in 1965.

Her first book, “The Myth of Marginality: Urban Politics and Poverty in Rio de Janeiro” (1976, UC Press) won the C. Wright Mills Award. This honor, established in 1964 by the Society for the Study of Social Problems, is presented annually to the author whose work best exemplifies outstanding social science research and a deep understanding of the relationship between individuals and society, in the tradition of sociologist C. Wright Mills.

Her second book, “Favela: Four Decades of Living on the Edge in Rio de Janeiro” won in 2010 the prestigious Publishers' PROSE Awards in two separate categories, “Excellence in the Social Sciences” and “Outstanding Contribution to the Field of Sociology and Social Work,” judged by separate boards, recognizing her substantial contributions to the fields of urban studies and social sciences.

Among her awards and honors, Perlman received a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship in 2005 in the category of Iberian and Latin American History.  She was also the inaugural recipient of the Chester Rapkin Award for the most outstanding article in the Journal of Planning Education and Research. Additionally, she was honored with the UN Global Citizens Award for her contributions to creating common unity.

Perlman was invited to the Vatican to participate in a Workshop on Sustainable Humanity, Sustainable Nature in May 2014 sponsored by the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences and the Pontifical Academy of Sciences. She was asked to present a paper on The Mega-Cities Challenge.

In 2015 she was presented with the “keys to the city” of Rio de Janeiro from the Mayor and the Governor, a symbol of prestige and acknowledgment of her contributions to the city.

In 2023, she was made an honorary member of Institute of Brazilian Architects, Rio de Janeiro chapter.

List of awards:

• 2019-2020: Fulbright Grant, at Fundação Joaquim Nabuco, Recife, Brazil.
• 2010: PROSE Awards for Social Sciences, Social Work and Sociology in recognition of “the very best authors for their commitment to pioneering research and for contributing to landmark work in their field.”
• 2009: Mayer Global Citizenship Award, “for dedication to solving the most pressing problems facing the world,” Tufts University.
• 2005: John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Award.
• 2000-2005: Fulbright Award for Longitudinal Research in Rio’s Favelas.
• 2000: Committees on Infrastructure and on Science & Technology for International Development, National Academy of Engineering, National Research Council.
• 1999: International Panel of Judges- World Awards for Model Cities, Singapore.
• 1997: UN Global Citizens Award, for Contribution to Creating Common Unity.
• 1997: Chair, Mayor’s Summit World Economic Forum, Davos, Switzerland.
• 1996: U.S. State Department, Official Delegate to the City Summit, Istanbul.
• 1989: CFR - Council on Foreign Relations, (among first female members).
• 1987-989: New York Women’s Foundation Founding Board Member.
• 1978: White House Advisory Committee on Neighborhoods.
• 1977, 1994, 2000: Committees on Infrastructure and on Science & Technology for International Development, National Academy of Engineering, National Research Council.

Publications

Dissertation

1971: “The Impact of Urban Experience” (PhD thesis, MIT, Political Science Department)

Award-winning books

• 2010: Favela: Four Decades of Living on the Edge in Rio de Janeiro (Oxford University Press)
  • 2019: Published in Portuguese by Editora FGV
  • 2024: Published in Portuguese by Rio Books.
  • Winner of two Publishers PROSE AWARDS (2010) for “Excellence in the Social Sciences” and for Outstanding Contribution to the Field of Sociology and Social Work”.

• 1976: The Myth of Marginality: Urban Poverty and Politics in Rio de Janeiro (1976, University of California Press)
  • Introduction by President Fernando Henrique Cardoso.
  • 1977: Published in Portuguese by Editora Paz e Terra.
  • Winner of 1976 C. Wright Mills Award

Edited volumes

• 1995: Inter-Regional Exchange and Transfer of Effective Practices in Urban Management, UNDP (Technical Cooperation among Developing Countries - TCDC), New York (translated into Spanish, French and Japanese).
• 1993: In Our Own Backyard: Principles for Effective Improvement of the Nation’s Infrastructure, National Research Council, National Academy of Sciences Press, Washington, D.C. (Committee on Infrastructure).
• 1991: Cities, People & Poverty: Urban Development Cooperation for the 1990s, UNDP Strategy Paper, United Nations Press, New York (contributing writer).

Mega-Cities products

• 2022: The Power of the Peripheries: Favelas Combat Covid; Potência Das Periferias: Favelas Contra A Covid, RIOBooks, Rio de Janeiro.
• 2002: Urban Leadership for the 21st Century: Scaling Up and Reaching Out from the Neighborhood Level, Grassroots Innovators in New York and Los Angeles, Kellogg Foundation.
• 2001: Heritage Conservation and Urban Revitalization in Three Latin American Cities: Mexico City, Rio de Janeiro and Havana, edited with Charles Rutheiser, Mega-Cities Project.
• 2001: Environmental Justice: Promising Solutions at the Intersection of Poverty and the Environment, Mega-Cities Project. Available at: www.megacitiesproject.org/publications/environment.asp

Book chapters

• (Forthcoming) 2025: Community-led housing: Looking back, looking forward across the legacy of John Turner: edited by Adriana Allen and Geoffrey Payne. UCL University College London Press.
• 2021: “The Hill and the Asphalt: a 50-year perspective on informality in Rio de Janeiro,” in Informality through Sustainability: Urban Informality Now, edited by Antonio Di Raimo, Steffen Lehmann and Alessandro Melis.
• 2016: "Re-thinking Precarious Neighborhoods. Concepts and Consequences," in Repenser les quartiers précaires, edited by Agnès Deboulet, AFD and Centre SUD, Paris (Launched at HABITAT III in Quito, Ecuador, October 2016).
• 2016: "Tangible and Intangible Cultural Heritage in the Historic Center and the Port Area of Rio de Janeiro," in The Global Report on Culture for Sustainable Urban Development, edited by Francesco Bandarin, UNESCO, Paris (Launched at HABITAT III in Quito, Ecuador, October 2016).
• 2016: "It All Depends: The Formalization of Informal Real Estate Transactions in Rio’s Favelas," in Slums: How Informal Real Estate Markets Work, edited by Eugenie L. Birch, Susan M. Wachter, and Shahana Chattaraj, University of Pennsylvania Press, Chapter 4.
• 2014: "What Happens when Marginal becomes Mainstream? How to See the City Challenge as an Opportunity," in The Buzz in Cities: New Economic Thinking, edited by Shahid Yusuf, The Growth Dialogue, Chapter IX.
• 2013: "What Rights of Way?" Foreword to Charles Fortin’s book Rights of Way to Brasilia Teimosa, Sussex Academic Press.
• 2012: "Favelas Ontem e Hoje: 1969-2009," in Favelas Cariocas Ontem e Hoje, Editora Garamond Ltda, Rio de Janeiro.
• 2012: "Eco-cities for All: Getting There," in Ecocities, edited by Jayne Engle-Warnick, David Brown, and Ray Tomalty, Island Press.
• 2010: "Parsing the Urban Poverty Puzzle: A Multi-Generation Panel Study in Rio de Janeiro’s Favelas, 1968-2008," in Urbanization and Development: Multidisciplinary Perspectives, edited by Jo Beall, Basudeh Guha-Khasnobis, and Ravi Kanbur, Oxford University Press, New York, Chapter 4.
• 2008: "Re-democratization Viewed from Below: Urban Poverty and Politics in Rio de Janeiro, 1968-2005," in Democratic Brazil Revisited, edited by Peter Kingstone and Timothy J. Power, University of Pittsburgh Press, Pittsburgh, Chapter 12.
• 2007: "Elusive Pathways Out of Poverty: Intra- and Intergenerational Mobility in the Favelas of Rio de Janeiro," in Moving Out of Poverty: Cross-Disciplinary Perspectives, edited by D. Narayan and P. Petesch, World Bank, Washington, D.C.; and Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke, UK.
• 2007: "Fighting Poverty and Environmental Injustice in Cities," in State of the World 2007: Our Urban Future, edited by Molly O’Meara Sheehan, Worldwatch Institute, Washington, D.C., pp. 172-239.
• 2007: "The Dynamics of Urban Poverty Across Time and Space," in Globalizing Cities: Inequality and Segregation in Developing Countries, edited by R.S. Sandhu and Jasmeet Sandhu, Rawat Publications, Jaipur, India, pp.339-392.
• 2006: "The Metamorphosis of Marginality: Four Generations in the Favelas of Rio de Janeiro," in Chronicle of a Myth Foretold: The Washington Consensus in Latin America, edited by Douglas Massey, M. Sanchez, and J. Behrman, Penn State Press, Chapter 7, pp. 253-271.
• 2005: "The Myth of Marginality Revisited: The Case of Favelas in Rio de Janeiro - 1969-2003," in Becoming Global and the New Poverty of Cities, edited by Lisa Hanley, Blair Ruble, and Joseph Tulchin, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, Washington, D.C., Chapter 1, pp. 9-54.
• 2005: "Chronic Poverty in Rio de Janeiro: What Has Changed in 30 Years," in Managing Urban Futures - Sustainability and Urban Growth in Developing Countries, edited by M. Keiner, W.A. Schmid, and M. Koll-Schretzenmayr, Ashgate Publishers, Hampshire, UK.
• 2005: "The Intergenerational Persistence of Poverty: Life Trajectories in Rio’s Favelas, 1968-2002," in Social Transformation in Brazil, edited by Mauricio Font and Desmond Arias, The Bildner Center, City University of New York (CUNY).
• 2005: "From Bombay to Beijing: Mega-cities and the Urban Century," in City Edge: Case Studies in Contemporary Urbanism, Architectural Press, Oxford, UK.
• 2005: "The Megacity Considered," in Top Notch: International Ideas for Today’s World, edited by Allen Ascher, Longman Publishers, Fall 2005.
• 2004: "Marginality: From Myth to Reality in the Favelas in Rio de Janeiro 1969-2002," in Urban Informality in an Era of Liberalization: A Transnational Perspective, edited by Ananya Roy and Nezar AlSayyad, Lexington Books, Chapter 5, pp. 105-146.
• 2002: "The Dissemination and Transfer of Urban Environmental Innovations," in The Future of Urban Environments, edited by Gary Gappert, Sage Publication, Newbury Park, CA.
• 2000: "Citizen Participation in City Planning and Development," in Model Cities: Urban Best Practices, edited by Ooi Giok Ling, Singapore, pp. 122-127.
• 1994: "Innovations for Sustainable Cities of the 21st Century," in Futures By Design: The Practice of Ecological Planning, edited by Doug Aberley, New Society Publisher, Philadelphia, PA, pp. 79-87.
• 1993: "Mega-Cities: Global Urbanization and Innovation," in Urban Management: Policies and Innovations in Developing Countries, edited by Shabbir Cheema, Greenwood/Praeger Press, Westport, CT, pp. 19-50.
• 1983: "Citizen Action and Participation in Madrid's Planning Process," in Citizen Participation in Western Europe: Paternalism, Conflict and Co–Production, edited by Lawrence Susskind, Plenum Press, New York, Chapter 7.
• 1983: "Copenhagen's Black Quadrant: The Facade and Reality of Participation," with Hans Spiegel, in Susskind (ed.), 1983, Chapter 2.
• 1983: "Docklands and Coventry: Two Citizen Action Groups in Britain's Economically Declining Areas," with Hans Spiegel, in Susskind (ed.), 1983, Chapter 4.
• 1981: "Favela Removal: The Eradication of a Life-Style," in Involuntary Migration and Resettlement: The Problems and Responses of Dislocated People, edited by Art Hanson and Anthony Oliver-Smith, Westview Press, Boulder, CO, pp. 225-244.
• 1981: "Strategies for Squatter Settlements: The State of the Art," in The Residential Circumstances of the Urban Poor in Developing Countries, The United Nations Center for Housing, Building and Planning, Praeger Publishing, New York, pp. 168-190.
• 1980: "The Failure of Influence: Squatter Eradication in Brazil," in Politics and Policy Implementation in the Third World, edited by Merilee Grindle, Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ, pp. 152-171.
• 1978: "Grassroots Participation from Neighborhood to Nation," in Citizen Participation in America: Essays on the State of the Art, edited by Stuart Langton, Lexington Books, D.C. Heath and Co., Lexington, MA, pp. 65-80.

Journal articles

• 2023: “The more things change, the more they stay the same: Pontezinha and Ponte dos Carvalhos 1965-2022.” Ciência & Trópico, 50 anos.
• 2022: “From Demon to Darling: Child of the Dark or Model for Sustainable Cities? Fifty years of perception, policy, and reality in Rio’s favelas.” Sustainability 2022, 14, MDPI.
• 2017: “Cities without Slums are Cities without Soul – Re-thinking Concepts and Consequences of Marginality in the Favelas of Rio de Janeiro,” Trialog 123, Other Housing Strategies, September, pp. 4-12.
• 2016: “Cities from Scratch: poverty and informality in urban Latin America,” Review Article, Planning Perspectives.
• 2016: “RIO 2016: Perspectives Beyond the Mega-Event,” Politheor Special Report, European Policy Network, International Affairs Interview, Simon Marijsse, June 29.
• 2014: “Urbanization, Megacities and Informal Settlements,” in APuZ: Politics and Contemporary History, May 12, pp. 52-60.
• 2012: “A Call to Action-Our Cities, Ourselves,” Daylight and Architecture (D/A), Velux Group, Issue 17, Summer, pp. 21-25.
• 2011: “Populist Purse-Strings Control: Participatory Budgeting,” Scientific American, Special Issue on Better, Greener, Smarter Cities, September, p. 87.
• 2011: “It All Depends: Buying and Selling Houses in Rio’s Favelas,” International Housing Coalition, Washington, D.C.
• 2007: “Cities, Dreams: Desires and Fears,” TRIALOG 92: Journal for Planning and Building in the Third World, Special Issue on Mega-Cities, January.
• 2006: “The Metamorphosis of Marginality: Four Generations in the Favelas of Rio de Janeiro,” Annals, The American Academy for Political and Social Science (AAPSS), 605, May.
• 2006: “Violence as Vulnerability in the Favelas of Rio de Janeiro,” Journal of Contingencies and Crisis Management, Brian Jacobs (ed.), Staffordshire University, UK.
• 2005: “Book Review of City Requiem, Calcutta: Gender and the Politics of Poverty,” Ananya Roy, Planning Theory and Practice, Vol. 6, No. 1, March, pp. 138-140.
• 2005: “Music and Movies from Rio de Janeiro Tell the Story: Urban Poverty Then and Now,” Metro, May.
• 2004: “Citizen Participation in City Planning and Development: An Overview and Argument,” ICFAI Journal of Infrastructure, Hyderabad, India, Vol. III, No. 2, September.
• 2004: "From the Marginality of the 1960's, to the 'New Poverty’ of Today: A LARR Research Forum," Latin American Research Review, Peter Ward (ed.), Vol. 39:1, February.
• 2003: "Lessons from a Longitudinal Panel Study in Rio's Favelas 1969-2003," in Caroline Moser (ed.), Development Planning Unit Working Paper No. 124, Bartlett School, University College London.
• 2003: “O Impacto das Políticas Sociais nas Favelas Cariocas,” Rio Estudos, no. 102, Secretaria Especial de Comunicação Social, Prefeitura da Cidade do Rio de Janeiro, May 8.
• 2002: “A Dinâmica da Pobreza Urbana: Um Estudo Longitudinal em Três Comunidades do Rio de Janeiro 1969-2001,” Trabalho e Sociedade, Ano 2: No. 3, IETS, April, pp. 21-27.
• 2001: “Shrinking World, Growing Cities,” Trinity Reporter, Spring, pp. 22-26.
• 2000: “From Favelados to Citizens” (with Flavia Sekles), UrbanAge: Global Cites Magazine, Winter, pp. 34-36.
• 1999: “The Advent of the Megacity,” Livable Communities: Improving Life in the World’s Megacities, USIA Publication, Washington, D.C., pp. 31-40.
• 1990: “A Dual Strategy for Deliberate Social Change in Cities,” Cities: The International Quarterly of Urban Policy, February, pp. 3-15.
• 1987: “Seis ideias errôneas sobre favelas,” Review of Municipal Administration (Revista de Administração Municipal), July-September, pp. 40-52.
• 1987: “Misconceptions About the Urban Poor and The Dynamics of Housing Policy Evolution,” Journal of Planning Education and Research, Vol.6, No. 3, Spring, pp. 187-196 (winner of the first Chester Rapkin Award).
• 1987: “Mega Cities and Innovative Technologies,” Cities: The International Quarterly of Urban Policy, May, pp. 128-186.
• 1986: “Six Misconceptions about Squatter Settlements,” Development: Journal of the Society for International Development, 1986:4, pp. 40-44.
• 1986: “Migration and Population Distribution Trends and Policies and the Urban Future,” with Bruce Schearer, Publication of the International Conference on Population and the Urban Future, UNFPA, Barcelona, Spain, May.
• 1983: “New York from the Bottom Up,” Urban Affairs, New York University, NY, May, pp. 27-34.
• 1983: “Voices from the Street,” Development: Journal of the Society for International Development, Rome, Italy, Vol. 2, 1983, pp. 47-52.
• 1979: “Neighborhood Research: A Proposed Methodology,” Journal of South Atlantic Urban Studies, Vol. 4, 1979, pp. 43-63.
• 1979: “Neighborhood Organization: America Learns from the Third World,” Built Environment, 5:2, 1979, pp. 111-119.
• 1979: “Grassroots Empowerment and Government Response,” in Social Policy Magazine, September/October.
• 1978: “Community Action Groups and City Government: A Review,” Policy Analysis, Winter.
• 1977: “Daydreams and Nightmares: Political Style in Brazilian Favelas,” The Third World Review, Vol. 3, No. 1, Spring.
• 1976: “Cowboydemokratie: Basisbewegungen in den USA,” Slowenenendlösung Forum, December, pp. 47-50.
• 1976: “Grassrooting the System,” Social Policy, Vol. VII, No. 2, September/October, pp. 4-20. (Reprinted in Fred M.Cox et.al., Strategies of Community Organization, Peacock Publishers, 1978; T.E. Shoemaker, State and Local Government Politics, Palisades Publishers, 1979; Capitalism in Crisis, URPE, New York, 1978.
• 1976: “Les Groups de Base dans les Années Soixante-Dix,” Les Temps Modernes, 32e Année, No. 361-362, August/September, pp. 163-187.
• 1976: “USA 1976: Action Directe et Projets Alternatifs: Un Bouillionement de Groupes de Base,” Autrement, May/June, pp. 54-63.
• 1975: “Rio's Favelas and the Myth of Marginality,” Politics and Society, Vol. 5, No. 2, pp. 131-160.
• 1975: “The Slandered Slum,” New Society, Vol. 31, No. 650, London, March 20, pp. 717-720. (Reprinted in The Third World: A Social Studies Reader, IPC Publishers, London, 1976).
• 1974: “Methodological Notes on Complex Survey Research Involving Life History Data,” Monograph No. 18, Institute of Urban and Regional Development, Berkeley, California, October.
• 1971: “Dimensões de Modernidade Numa Cidade em Franco Desenvolvimento: Estudo de Caso de Belo Horizonte” (Dimensions of Modernity in a Developing City: Case Study of Belo Horizonte), Revista Brasileira de Estudos Políticos, November 30.