Today's buzzword is "verticalization", the planning idiom that characterizes the urban forms of much of Sao Paulo. Flying over the 20-million (give or take a few million) Sao Paulo metro area in the early morning while reading Silvio Soares Macedo's "The Vertical Cityscape in Sao Paulo" (from Vincente del Rio's anthology, "Beyond Brasilia: Contemporary Urbanism in Brazil" is as show-and-tell as it gets. Miles and miles of stand-alone but closely spaced high rises. Brazil's largest city has a growth pattern shaped by decades of modernist aspirations, very specific zoning code dictates of setbacks and height limits, regional long-range planning ideals and the push-pull of government control and market-driven private developers. What has emerge as the desired habitation for all classes of urban dwellers is a very vertical form within a gated surround of private, sometimes park-like space, a car-centric landscape not accessible either visually or socially to the street, but a very intoxicating structural mix of modern styles, shapes and materials that has appeal from airplane and street alike at its best.
We are picked up at the airport by Ricardo, who tells us that Sao Paulo was largely settled by Italians, unlike the Portuguese historyof many of Brazil's other urban areas. There are significant Japanese and Lebanese communities here as well.
Jet-lagged like crazy, we get out for an afternoon of walking and find--despite all the cars-- a lively streetscape. We pass a large meet-and-greet for a Green Party candidate (Lee shakes his hand), have lunch in a trendy spot bordering a park and witness a strike rally by some government workers and further down Paulista Avenue, a student protest over higher education costs. Fighting travelers' fatigue, we are nonetheless now game for going out to dinner. Who knew that pizza was a must-try item in Brazil?
We are picked up at the airport by Ricardo, who tells us that Sao Paulo was largely settled by Italians, unlike the Portuguese historyof many of Brazil's other urban areas. There are significant Japanese and Lebanese communities here as well.
Jet-lagged like crazy, we get out for an afternoon of walking and find--despite all the cars-- a lively streetscape. We pass a large meet-and-greet for a Green Party candidate (Lee shakes his hand), have lunch in a trendy spot bordering a park and witness a strike rally by some government workers and further down Paulista Avenue, a student protest over higher education costs. Fighting travelers' fatigue, we are nonetheless now game for going out to dinner. Who knew that pizza was a must-try item in Brazil?
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