“It is a great white concrete dream, or nightmare,” wrote Patrick Semple, a Guardian Cities reader, of São Paulo, his home since February. “It is a fabulous party, infuriating and starkly beautiful. It is more expensive than London, yet people can get by on the street.
“It is noisy, all the time: the school day starts at half-past six, the bars close at 3am, music is as ubiquitous as the car fumes. The roads are ruinous. When it rains, rivers erupt in the gutters; when it’s hot they fill up with people. From high up, the city at night looks like God’s chandelier has just crashed to earth.”
Semple wrote to us a few months ago, to tell us what we could expect of Brazil’s largest city. This week we experienced it ourselves, in all its complex concrete glory – well, some of it. As Erzsebet Mangucci, 80, who immigrated to Brazil from Hungary when she was nine years old, wrote to us to say: “You don’t actually live in the city of São Paulo. Even after 70 years, you live in a very small piece of it.”
We are grateful to everyone who has engaged with our journalism and our journalists, from São Paulo and afar, in person in the Copan building on Thursday night and on social media at #GuardianSaoPaulo. You have been incredibly generous with your knowledge, ideas, opinions and time, and it has made our reporting better and richer.
Here we share an edited selection of the responses we’ve received. Particular thanks must go to Paulistanos for sharing your city with us.
‘The dichotomy of ultra-rich or miserably poor is not true’
A common misconception of São Paulo is that people are either super poor and live in favelas, or they are super wealthy and fly in helicopters. I am a middle-class Paulistana who worked hard to go to university and worked hard after that to get a job overseas, in London.
It has always been difficult to explain where I come from; that São Paulo has many middle-class neighbourhoods with people living normal lives like those of the middle-class in Europe or the US; that the dichotomy of ultra- rich or miserably poor is not true.
This difficulty comes of the middle class being ignored by international media, except when they protest loud enough. It would only be fair to Paulistanos that São Paulo be given a more balanced treatment, reflective of the city’s complex reality. Anonymous
‘São Paulo’s middle class is what makes it a great city’
On the report by Leonardo Sakamato – a reporter who uses statistics from Movimento dos Trabalhadores Sem Teto (Homeless Workers’ Movement) is a reporter who has not checked their sources properly. MTST is a political movement. If there is one thing they don’t care about, it is the living conditions of poor people. MTST is deeply connected to the Partido dos Trabalhadores (Workers’ Party) – they only invade land that will cause an political impact.
The picture drawn by Sakamoto is definitely not accurate. OK, São Paulo has inequalities, but it is not as described. There are lots of middle-class neighbourhoods – it is not just extra-rich versus extra-poor. This is what makes São Paulo a great city. If this reporter has this view of São Paulo, I wonder what he has to say about Rio de Janeiro or Salvador. Luiza Manguino
‘São Paulo is not making any strides towards prosperity for all’
‘Favela fires are the failure of the government’
I’m a documentary maker from São Paulo. I made a feature film about fires in the favelas. Those that are more frequently destroyed by fire are closer to the centre of the city, where the land is more densely occupied, and worth more. These communities are frowned upon, both because residents fear that slums will result in more crime in the neighbourhood and bring down the values of their homes. It’s the very old-fashioned prejudice of rich folk everywhere against the poor. In São Paulo, it means the favelas do not evolve beyond dwellings made mostly of cardboard and wood.
Slums further away from the city centre become more urbanised over time, and are made of brick and cement and as such less susceptible to fire. This is the social mechanism at work in this correlation between land value and fire. What sparks the fire is not all that relevant – most are caused by accidents or electrical short circuits. The real question is why these people were allowed to live in homes made of flammable material for so long, with no action from the authorities to prevent fire. This is why the “government finds no link”, as you reported. It’s the failure of the government that these communities remain in misery. Conrado Ferrato
‘Favela fires cannot be investigated in a broken system’
It’s hard to make anything of any correlation, except to prove or disprove causation, and for that you need a public body interested in poorer peoples safety., and criminal investigations which might be interested in justice.
This is a of course a contradiction if public bodies are more interested in private developments than social conditions and community.
Such disinterest in poor peoples fire safety and living conditions could never happen in Britain, because we have proper means to investigate correlations and complaints, and have swift actions by law enforcement agencies and a keen interest by the media.
‘Working for the city, we struggle with political interference’
I work for São Paulo City Hall as a planning permission and licensing inspector. We try to work in the middle of corruption, inefficiency and a lot of political interference. In my opinion, unauthorised developments on conservation areas in the city’s periferia is a serious problem. Sometimes the real estate “entrepreneurs” are protected by city councillors and possibly criminal organisations.
I used to work in one of the most violent neighbourhoods in São Paulo, the notorious Jardim Ângela, and I would have a feeling of impotence when I saw the illegal development on land close to the Guarapiranga Reservoir. If we have that kind of problem in the richest city of the country, I can’t imagine what is going on in the Brazilian Amazon.
Finally, I would like to say that I respect the protest housing movement, even though I represent law enforcement. São Paulo has a very progressive master plan and zoning code, but fewer than 500 inspectors to control more than 11m inhabitants and 1521 sq km.
We have good news as well. I am part of a group that has been developing a system for the inspectors, and since August, we have gone from paper fines to digital, bringing transparency to the municipality. But with all this technology, we still struggle with political interference and lack of inspectors. Ana Carolina Adriano
‘Drug addiction is perpetuated by public policy’
I was in the neighborhood around 3 months ago and the Parque da Luz isn't the area with more addicts, that would be the surroundings of Sala Sao Paulo and Estacao Pinacoteca. The number of addicts in the streets was smaller, but their presence nearby the Estacao and places like the concert house and the gallery has always varied, since their presence is higher or lower depending on how many police officers are patrolling the streets. I was in the actual Cracolandia only once, some 7 years ago. It was heartbreaking.
The mini cracolandias are also everywhere. In Paulista Avenue I've spotted at least two. And what I've noticed is that many of the people who are victims of addiction have also some degree of mental problems. They need special medical and psychological treatment, a chance of social rehabilitation and when I first heard that the previous administration was pointing towards that, I thought it was positive. The fact that the current administration called (to gain political points with people who are disgusted by the addicts) their project "crack-fellowship" is sickening. Specially after they decided to overhaul the whole thing and later admit that the problem can't be solved by a media stunt claiming "Mission accomplished". The lack of long term thinking in matters of public policy is what perpetuates problems like these.
However, despite the fact that I feel that our mayor lacks the sensibility and understanding of the drug problem in our city, I am glad some people are getting their lives back and I hope that others will, too.
‘What is Sampa other than perpetual change?’
Protestants here are highly motivated are mostly rightwing. That can explain many things that have being happening lately, from impeachment of the last President to the "culture wars" very well covered by The Guardian's recent article. #GuardianSaoPaulo
— Marcelo (@oo99988ik) November 30, 2017
Sampa is such a mix of peoples and cultures that in the last 2 decades we changed our religion from overwhemingly catolic to mostly protestant. It made us more conservstive but may have good sides too. #GuardianSaoPaulo
— Marcelo (@oo99988ik) November 30, 2017
The kinds of changes São Paulo have being undergoing are sometimes hard to swallow, but they are always rewarding in the end. And, after all, what is Sampa other than perpetual change? #GuardianSaoPaulo
— Marcelo (@oo99988ik) November 30, 2017
...... prosperity for all. Which São Paulo does the writer refer to? São Paulo in Brazil, violent and crime ridden, along with the rest of the country, is not making any strides towards prosperity for all. Just prosperity for those who rule the country at every level from municipal up to and including the President and the federal government. Until corruption is stamped out, and with a system that protects corrupt politicos it is hard to see how this will be achieved, there will never be prosperity for all.