As @throwawayr1188, me too, I'm born and raised in Rio, and I'm very surprised to see such article on Hacker News. No doubt, a favela can be a very dangerous p

As @throwawayr1188, me too, I'm born and raised in Rio, and I'm very surprised to see such article on Hacker News. No doubt, a favela can be a very dangerous place from an foreign, but I understand the fact that many people are curious to see how it really looks in its innards, despite this danger. My grandfather lived his entire life in a favela called Acari in the North of Rio, and I used to go there visit him. About 50 milles distant from Copacabana, Acari is a shit place with an IDH lower than some poor countries in Africa. But, as described in The Economist article, Acari too has a very active economy. You can find all sort of businesses in there. Of course, I'm not talking about millions of dollars businesses, but there's an interesting cash flow running inside of the favela. However it's not enough to make people rich. The life condition in favela are really horrible. Besides all that has been said here, I have to add on point that hasn't been mentioned: Favela are extremely noisy places... It's pretty common bars playing music incredible loud. Besides that, some favelas organise parties called 'baile funks'. These parties have their pros and cons: PROS - people coming from outside (many spend money buying drinks, food, cigarettes, etc) - it promotes some fun for young people living in the favela CONS - These partie are often organised by drug dealers... it attracts some drug adds to the location, and cocaine, crack, etc run freely - The music in the 'bailes' uses to be extremely loud. As it doesn't have acoustic protection the entire favela don't sleep during those parties which may go through an entire week-end. It very bad for those who have to wake up to go work. My advice, do not visit favelas... The vast majority of its population, I'd say more than 99,9% of its habitants are honest people, but this 0,1% and their war with police and other drug dealers represent a real danger for your life.