When the Jardim Edite favela was scheduled for demolition by S'o Paulo's city authorities, most of its 800 families had little expectation that they would be allowed to remain in their neighborhood. Their shacks were located at the point where the corporate towers of Avenida Berrini meet the new luxury condos sprouting up along Avenida 'gua Espraiada, a hotspot of the real-estate boom that has gripped South America's largest metropolis for the last five years.
So sure were they of being relocated to the city's periphery that most residents accepted meager government help to move to grim public-housing projects hours away from their jobs serving the needs of Berrini's office workers. But for the lucky 252 families who held on, the city is now putting the finishing touches on a development that will rehouse them on the site of their old slum.
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