Day 17: August 2, 2006

The City of Sao Paulo, is the third largest City in terms of populous, in the world, behind Tokyo and Mexico City. And like all major cities, it has it’s share of problems….from prisoner directed murders of public officials and police officers, to bus bombings done by the PCC (at least they make sure the bus is empty), to traffic congestion nightmares, and so on. And being that I’m here to do research for the summer, what better way to get to know the city than to walk it, drive it, ride it, and cross it. So that’s what I’ve been doing. Walks and trips that only those foreign and oblivious to a city and it’s problems would venture to do. Well not oblivious, but willing to engage the city from a different perspective. It would be the Los Angeles equivalent of when Ian from London came to visit and wanted to go see NASCAR in Irwindale, or when he wanted to go check out Compton. So, when I tell people that I want to go to Carandiru, the former site of the prison made famous by the rebellion and subsequent self-titled Documentary, they ask if I’m crazy. Why would I want to go there? Well, for one reason, as GMO and a couple of other students who beat me to the punch to go there found out (they went on my recommendation), there is a beautiful park, complete with new skatepark, and a complete system of ziplines in the tree canopy for visitors to enjoy, the place is not what it once used to be. I imagine this is just one of the many ways that Sampa (Sao Paulo) attempts to better the city’s image.

Another funny little story I heard was related to a neighborhood in the north of Sampa, that frequently hosts Formula One racing is pretty run down, particularly the one part of the track that is bordered by a favela. So instead of worrying about improving the neighborhood, he did a façade improvement on the area that was most frequently caught on camera, leaving the rest of the favela to lay there as normal. Effective for improving the international image of the city, but utter crap for really improving conditions for the poor living in the area.

Switching gears, kind of, there is a project that I just started getting involved in that would implement Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) from the center of the city to the east side (why is it that the east side is last to get developed? East Germany, East LA, East Sao Paulo…I’m exaggerating of course). The plans have been completed by Logit, a brazilian consulting firm that I just started interning with Big problem, is that plans had been temporarily shelved due to the fact that political support has waned recently. Logit, being the cool type of consulting firm that takes on it’s own projects, has blown a small amount of life back into the project, and I’ve been assigned to help out Juliana, inhouse architect/associate, to revisit the project and improve those areas of the plans that lacked full development. I guess. At least that’s what I understood from my first meeting with the people at Logit. That’s it for now.