Concrete Interests: Paramilitary City-Building in Rio de Janeiro

How do armed groups reshape cities? This article argues that Rio de Janeiro’s milícias—paramilitary organizations, frequently led by current and former security officers,—govern territory through “build-to-hold” urbanization. Rather than simply extracting rents, milícias construct informal housing to expand captive populations that generate recurring income, electoral leverage, and political protection. Combining geospatial data on territorial control with satellite-derived measures of urban development from 2016–2023, I use staggered difference-in-differences estimators to show that milícia entry causes sustained increases in building density and height. These effects are absent in gang-controlled areas and persist in territories transitioning from gangs to milícias, indicating that densification is specific to the milícia governance model. I further show that increased construction does not increase formal housing prices or transaction activity, consistent with a system in which armed actors retain control over housing assets rather than integrating them into formal markets. The findings demonstrate how criminal organizations actively produce urban space in ways that entrench coercive authority and blur the boundary between criminal governance and state power.