Foundation

São Paulo Foundation, 1913 painting by Antônio Parreira

The village of São Paulo in Piratininga arose on the 25th of January 1554, with the construction of a Jesuit school by twelve priests, among them Manuel da Nóbrega and José de Anchieta, on the top of a carped hill, between the Anhangabaú and Tamanduateí rivers. Such a college, which worked in a barracon made from a pylon beetle, had the purpose of catechism of the Indians who lived in the region of the Piratininga Plateau, separated from the coast by the Serra do Mar (Sea Ridge), called by the Indians "Serra de Paranapifim".

The name São Paulo was chosen because the day of the foundation of the school was January 25, the same day on which the Catholic Church celebrates the conversion of the apostle Paulo de Tarso, as Father José de Anchieta said in a letter to the Company of Jesus:

On the 25th of January of the Year of the Lord of 1554, we celebrated the first mass, in pauperia and very narrow house, on the day of the conversion of the Apostolo São Paulo, and for this reason we dedicated our house to it!

— José de Anchieta

Colonial period

Courtyard at the Historical Center of São Paulo. In this place, the city was founded in 1554. The current building is a reconstruction done in the second half of the 20th century, having as models the Jesuit school and church that were erected on site in 1653.

Monument to the Flags, in honor of the Bandeirantes

Monument to Independence in the park of the same name, located where Brazil's independence was proclaimed

The settlement of the Patio region of the College began in 1560, when, on the visit of Mem de Sá, the governor-general of Brazil, to the Capitania of São Vicente, the latter ordered the transfer of the population of Vila de Santo André da Borda Campo, which had been created by João Ramalho in 1553, to the environs of the school, called "São Paulo College of Piratiniao Paulo inga", a high and more suitable place (a carpade hill next to a large fence, the Carmo Valley, on the one hand, and, on the other hand, the Anhangabaú Valley, on the other hand), in order to protect itself better from the attacks of the Indians. For being on a high hill, marched by two valleys (of the Tamanduateí and Anhangabaú rivers), it was safer than the Vila de Santo André da Borda do Campo (now the city of Santo André), close to the Serra do Mar (Serra do Mar), which was constantly threatened by more combative Indians.

During the next two centuries, São Paulo remained like a poor and isolated village of the center of gravity of the colony, the coast, and maintained itself by means of subsistence crops. São Paulo was, for a long time, the only village in the interior of Brazil. This isolation of São Paulo took place mainly because it was difficult to climb the Serra do Mar mountain range from Vila de Santos or from Vila de São Vicente to the Piratininga Plateau. Go up this one that was made by Father José de Anchieta. Mem de Sá, when he visited the Capitania of São Vicente, prohibited the use of the "Path of the Piraique" (today Piaçaguera), for the frequent attacks of the Indians.

On March 22, 1681, the Marquis de Cascais, owner of the Capitania of São Vicente, transferred the capital of the Capitania of São Vicente to the Vila de São Paulo, which became the "Head of Capitania". The new capital was set up on April 23, 1683, with major public celebrations.

As the poorest region of the Portuguese colony in America, in São Paulo the activity of the bandeirantes began, who dispersed themselves throughout the country to hunt for Indians because, being extremely poor, the people of São Paulo could not buy African slaves. They also went out looking for gold and diamonds. The discovery of gold in the region of Minas Gerais, in the 1690s, made the kingdom's attention turn to São Paulo.

The new Captaincy of São Paulo and Minas de Ouro was created on November 3, 1709, when the Portuguese crown bought the Capitania of São Paulo and the Capitania of Santo Amaro of its former donators. On July 11, 1711, the Vila de São Paulo was elevated to the category of city. Soon afterwards, around 1720, gold was found, by the bandeirantes, in the regions where the city of Cuiabá and the city of Goiás are to be found, a fact that led to the expansion of Brazilian territory beyond the Tordesillas Line.

When the gold ran out, at the end of the 18th century, the São Paulo economic cycle of sugarcane began, which spread throughout the hinterland of the São Paulo captaincy. Through the city of São Paulo, sugar production was sold to the port of Santos. At that time, the first modern road between São Paulo and the coast was built: Lorena's Pavement.

Imperial period

Largo da Sé in 1880 by Marc Ferrez

Court of 1898 by Guilherme Gaensly

After the Independence of Brazil, which occurred where the Ipiranga Monument is today, São Paulo received the title of Imperial Cidade, conferred by Dom Pedro I do Brasil in 1823. In 1827, there was the creation of legal courses in the São Francisco Convention (which would give origin to the future Law School of the Largo de São Francisco), and this gave a new boost to growth to the city, with the flow of students and teachers, thanks to which, the city goes on to be called the Imperial City and Burg of the Students of São Paulo of Piratininga.

Another fatora in the growth of São Paulo was the expansion of the production of coffee, initially in the region of the São Paulo Paraíba Valley, and afterwards in the regions of Campinas, Rio Claro, São Carlos and Ribeirão Preto. From 1869 onwards, São Paulo started to benefit from a railroad that links the interior of the province of São Paulo to the port of Santos, the Ferro Santos-Jundiaí Highway, called The English.

At the end of the 19th century, several other railroads appeared that link the interior of the state to the capital, São Paulo. São Paulo then became the point of convergence of all the railroads coming from the interior of the state. The production and export of coffee allows the city and the province of São Paulo, afterwards called the State of São Paulo, to have a great economic and population growth.

From the middle of this century to the end, it was the period that the province began to receive a large quantity of immigrants, in a good part Italian, of which many settled in the capital, and the first industries began to install themselves.

Old Republic

With the end of the Second Reign and the beginning of the Republic, the city of São Paulo, as well as the state of São Paulo, has great economic and population growth, also aided by the coffee policy with milk and by the great European and Asian immigration to São Paulo. On the large number of immigrants in the capital of São Paulo, Cornélio Pires, in his book "Samba e Cateretês", collected a modinha, from 1911, by Dino Cipriano, which describes the impression that the man from the interior had of the capital city of São Paulo:

Light Station in 1900

Avenida Paulista (1902)

!Just one thing here in S. Pole that I've already put on notice: what you see is strangers! Brazilian is very rare!

— Dino Cipriano

During the Old Republic (1889-1930), São Paulo went from a regional center to a national metropolis, industrializing itself and reaching its first million inhabitants in 1928. Its largest growth, in this period, relative took place, in the 1890s, when it doubled its population. The peak of the coffee period is represented by the construction of the second Luz Station (the current building) at the end of the 19th century and by Paulista Avenue in 1900, where many mansions were built.

The Anhangabaú river valley is courageous and the region on its left bank becomes known as the Centro Novo. The seat of the São Paulo government is transferred, at the beginning of the 20th century, from the Patio of the College to Campos Elísios. In 1922, São Paulo housed the Week of Modern Art, which was a landmark in the history of art in Brazil. In 1929, São Paulo won its first skyscraper, the Martinelli building.

The modifications carried out in the city by Antônio da Silva Prado, the Baron of Duprat and Washington Luís, which governed from 1899 to 1919, contributed to the climate of development of the city; some scholars consider that the entire city was demolished and rebuilt in that period.

With the industrial growth of the city in the 20th century, to which the difficulties of access to imports also contributed during the First World War, the urban area of the city began to increase, with some residential districts being built in places of the house. From the 1920s, with the rectification of the course of the Pinheiros river and the reversal of its waters to feed the Henry Borden Hydroelectric Plant, the flooding in the vicinity of that river ended, allowing it to spring up in the western part of São Paulo, high-standard lots known today as the "Jardins Region".

Also at the beginning of the 1920s, the São Paulo Revolt of 1924 occurred, an armed conflict that was waged in the working districts close to the center of the city of São Paulo and that lasted 23 days, from July 5 to 28, leaving hundreds dead and thousands wounded. The confrontation between the federal troops of President Artur Bernardes and part of the Brazilian army, was classified by the federal government as a conspiracy, riot and "revolt against the homeland, without foundation, headed up by disorderly members of the Brazilian army". Among the reasons that triggered the uprising were the Brazilian economic crisis, with the fall in exports after the First World War and the political crisis, with the dissatisfaction of some political groups with the concentration of power between representatives from the states of São Paulo and Minas Gerais. These groups formed the Republican Reaction movement, which asked for protection for all Brazilian products, not only for coffee, as was usual. The movement supported Nilo Peçanha in the 1922 elections, won by Arthur Bernardes, from Minas Gerais. Some military personnel opposed him taking over the presidency, which started the disagreements between the Armed Forces and the Federal Government, which culminated in the 1924 revolt.

At the end of the decade, more precisely between the years 1928 and 1933, cadastral plants of the municipality were drawn up on a scale of 1:5 000 and 1:1 000, this being the first carried out in Brazil and one of the first in the world for the use of aero-grammetry. He was one of the world's pioneers, with this the municipality of São Paulo gained a great deal of detail in its territory by means of the rapid execution of the aero-grammetry when compared with topographical surveys, a method previously used.

The Anhangabaú valley in the second half of the 1920s

1932 revolution in contemporaneity

Anhangabaú in the 1950s, with a highlight for the Palacete Prates in the foreground and the Martinelli and Altino Arantes buildings in the background

In 1932, São Paulo mobilized itself in its largest civic movement: the constitutionalist revolution, when the whole population is engaging in the war against Getúlio Vargas's "Interim Government." In 1934, with the gathering of some faculties created in the 19th century and the creation of others, the University of São Paulo (USP) is founded, today the largest in Brazil. Another major industrial outbreak occurred during World War II, due to the coffee crisis in the 1930s and restrictions on international trade during the war, which made the city have a very high rate of economic growth that remained high in the post-war period.

In 1947, São Paulo gained its first highway with asphalt: the Via Anchieta (built on the ancient route of the Path of Father José de Anchieta), links the capital to the São Paulo coast. In the 1950s, São Paulo was known as The city that cannot stop and as The city that grows the most in the world.

In 1954, São Paulo held a major celebration of the city's "Fourth Century'' foundation. The Ibirapuera Park is inaugurated, many historical books have been launched and the source of the Tietê river in Salesópolis has been discovered. With the transfer, from the 1950s onwards, of part of the city's financial center located in the historical center (in the region called the "Historical Triangle"), to Avenida Paulista, its mansions were, in its majority, replaced by large buildings.

Prestes Maia Avenue, where the Anhangabaú is today, in 1974

In the period from the 1930s until the 1960s, the great entrepreneurs in the development of São Paulo were mayor Francisco Prestes Maia and the governor of the state of São Paulo Ademar de Barros, who was also the mayor of São Paulo between 1957 and 1961. Prestes Maia projected and implanted, in the 1930s, the "Avenue Plan for the City of São Paulo", which revolutionized the traffic in São Paulo.

These two rulers are also responsible for the two largest urban interventions, after the Avenue Plan, and which changed São Paulo: the rectification of the Tietê River with the construction of its marginals and the São Paulo Metro: on february 13, 1963, governor Ademar de Barros and mayor Prestes Maia created the commission (state and municipal) for studies for the preparation of the basic São Paulo Metro project, and set aside for Metro its first funds.

At the beginning of the 1960s, São Paulo had already added up to four million inhabitants. The São Paulo subway began to operate commercially on September 14, 1974, and in 2016 it had a network of 71.5 kilometers in length and 64 stations distributed over five lines. In that year, 1.1 billion passengers were transported by the system.

In 2008, the city of São Paulo ranked 56th in the ranking of the 75 most important centers of global trade, occupying the 3rd position in Latin America.

Overview of the city with a prominence for the Spigão da Paulista in 2012

Pico do Jaraguá, the highest point in the municipality, at an altitude of 1,135 meters

Greater São Paulo, Baixada Santista and its environs from the ERA

São Paulo is the capital of the most populous state of Brazil, São Paulo, located at latitude 23°33'01'' south and longitude 46°38'02'' west. The total area of the municipality is 1,521.11 km², according to the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE), the ninth largest in the state in territorial terms. Of the whole area of the municipality, 949,611 km² are urban areas (2015), being the largest urban area in the country.

São Paulo has an average altitude of 760 meters. The culminating point of the municipality is the Pico do Jaraguá, at an altitude of 1,135 meters above sea level, located in the Jaraguá State Park, in the Cantareira mountains, where the second largest urban forest in the world is also to be found, in the Cantareira Park.

The intense conurbation process currently under way in Greater São Paulo has made the political boundaries between the municipalities of the region ineffective, creating a metropolis whose center is in São Paulo and reaches municipalities, such as Santo André, São Bernardo do Campo, São Caetano do Sul, Diadema (the so-called Greater ABC Region), Osasco and Guarulhos, among several others. The Metropolitan Region of São Paulo (RMSP) was created in 1973 and is currently made up of 39 municipalities, the largest urban agglomeration in Brazil and the third largest in the Americas, with 20 820 093 inhabitants. In 2009, its Gross Domestic Product (GDP) totaled some 613 billion Brazilian reais (approximately 15 billion US dollars).

Climate

The São Paulo climate is characterized as a humid subtropical (Cwa type according to Köppen), with dry winters and rainy summers with higher temperatures, autumn and spring being transition seasons. However, due to its altitude, São Paulo is experiencing temperate climate conditions. Precipitation falls mainly in the form of rain and, sporadically, hail, and may also be accompanied by electrical discharges and strong wind bursts. During the summer months, occurrences of convective rain, associated with heat and higher humidity, especially at the end of the afternoon, are common.

On the other hand, in winter, when the frequency of rainfall is lower, the relative humidity of the air (URA) falls, sometimes to below 30%, making it difficult to disperse pollutants and favoring air pollution. At that time, however, it is more common to have polar air masses which help to bring down temperatures, some of which are stronger to 10 °C or less. The lowest maximum temperature recorded in São Paulo since the beginning of the measurements (in 1961) was 8.7 °C on July 24, 2013. Snows occur when there is a combination of high humidity and low temperatures, while the frost occurs sporadically in regions further from the center and, in stricter winters, in a good part of the municipality.

According to data from the conventional meteorological station of the National Meteorology Institute (INMET) in the Mirante de Santana, the municipality's official, since 1945, had the lowest temperature recorded in São Paulo at -2.1 °C on August 2, 1955 and the highest temperature reached 37.8 °C on October 17, 2014, exceeding the previous mark of 37 °C observed on 20 January 1999. The largest accumulation of rainfall observed in 24 hours reached 151.8 mm on 21 December 1988. March 2006, with 607.9 mm, was the month of the highest rainfall followed by February 2020 (505.7 mm). The lowest UR index was registered on the afternoon of August 14, 2009, at 10%. Since July 2006, when INMET entered the same location, the largest wind burst reached 24.6 m/s (88.6 km/h) on January 30, 2019.

Hydrography

Marginal Tietê and River Tietê		Billings dam

São Paulo is located near the basin of the Tietê river, with the sub-basins of the Pinheiros river and the Tamanduateí river having important roles in its configuration. Its rivers have already been an important source of fresh water and leisure. However, heavy industrial effluents ​ ​ and wastewater discharges at the end of the 20th century caused rivers to become heavily polluted. A substantial clean-up program for both rivers is under way (see the Tietê Project), financed through a partnership between the local government and the international development banks, such as the Inter-American Development Bank (BID). The river is inland on the stretch that runs through the city, although the transport of water becomes increasingly important in the river Tietê due to the Tietê-Paraná river.

There are no large natural lakes in the region, but the Billings and Guarapiranga reservoirs in the suburbs of the south of the city are used ​ for generating energy, storing water and leisure activities. The original flora of the area consisted mainly of perennial angiosperms. Non-native species are common, mild climate and abundant rainfall allow the multitude of tropical, subtropical and temperate plants to be cultivated, especially the omnipresent eucalyptus.

The northern part of the municipality contains part of the Cantareira State Park of 7,917 hectares, created in 1962, which protects a large part of the São Paulo metropolitan water supply. In 2015, São Paulo experienced a major drought, which led several cities in the state to initiate the rationing system.

Environmental problems

River Pinheiros, one of the most polluted in the city. The degradation of water resources is a chronic problem in the metropolis.

Smog seen on the horizon of the Ibirapuera region

The pollution of the air in the municipality is intense, mainly due to the enormous quantity of automobiles that circulate daily in their streets, avenues and highways. The World Health Organization (WHO) sets a limit of 20 micrograms of particulate matter per cubic meter of air as a safe annual average. In an evaluation carried out by the WHO of one thousand more cities around the world in 2011, the city of São Paulo was classified in the 268th position amongst the most polluted, with an average rate of 38 micrograms per cubic meter, an index well above the limit imposed by the organization, but lower than that of other Brazilian cities, like Rio de Janeiro (64 micrograms per cubic meter). A 2013 study indicated that air pollution in the city causes more deaths than traffic accidents.

Besides air pollution, the municipality has serious problems due to water pollution, concentrated mainly on its two main rivers, the river Tietê and the river Pinheiros, which are highly degraded and are some of the country's most polluted rivers. Since 1992, however, the river Tietê has undergone a clean-up program that has already cost 2.7 billion dollars.

The problem of the balanced supply of water to the city - and to the metropolis in general - is also a worrying one: São Paulo has few sources of water at its own perimeter, having to look for it in distant water basins. The problem of water pollution is also aggravated by the irregular occupation of the water supply areas, brought about by urban expansion, driven by the difficulty of access to land and housing in central areas by the low income population and associated with property speculation and precariousness in the new building lots. This also leads to an overvaluation of individual transport over collective transport - leading to the current rate of more than one vehicle per two inhabitants and aggravating the problem of environmental pollution.

Parks and biodiversity

Cantareira State Park, part of the Biosphere Reserve of the Green Belt of São Paulo		People's Park located in Itaim Bibi District, West Zone

In 2010, São Paulo owned 62 municipal and state parks, such as the Cantareira State Tourist Park, part of the São Paulo Green Belt Biosphere Reserve, which houses one of the largest urban forests on the planet with 7,900 hectares in length, the Ipiranga State Park Fontes, Ibirapuera Park, the Tietetete Ecological Park ê, the Jaraguá State Park, which was overtaken by Unesco as a World Heritage Site in 1994, the Capivari-Monos Environmental Protection Area, the Serra do Mar State Park, the Anhanguera Park, the Villa-Lobos Park, the People's Park, among others.

In 2009, São Paulo had 2,300 hectares of green area, less than 1.5% of the city's area and below the 12 m² per inhabitant recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO). Around 21% of the municipality's area is covered by green areas, including ecological reserves (2010 data).

In the municipality it is possible to observe forest birds that generally appear in the spring, due to the belt of native forest that still surrounds the metropolitan region. Species like orange-mockingbird, blood, well-seen and hummingbird are the most common. In spite of intense pollution, the main rivers of the city, the Tietê and Pinheiros, house various species of animals such as capivaras, hawks, I want-want, African waiters and rats from the bathwater. Other species found in the municipality are the red brocket, the red brocket, the red brocket and the wild boar.

Ibirapuera park with Obelisco and the city at the bottom; in 2013, the best park in South America was elected by users of the TripAdvisor site

São Paulo was the Brazilian capital that grew the most in the entire twentieth century, reaching the mark of one million inhabitants in the 1930s and configuring itself as the most populous municipality in Brazil since 1960, when it surpassed Rio de Janeiro. In the 2010 demographic census, the municipality's population was the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE) of 11 253 503 inhabitants, with a population density of 7 387.69 inhabitants per square kilometer.

According to the same census, 5 924 871 were female (52.65%) and 5 328 632 were male (47.35%). Also according to the same census, 11 152 344 inhabitants lived in the urban area (99.1%) and 101 159 in the rural area (0.9%). In that year, the most populous district of São Paulo was Grajaú, with 360 787 inhabitants, and Marsilac, in the far south of the municipality, the least populous, with a population of 8 258 people. For 2019, the population estimate is 12 252 023 inhabitants.

Human Development

Districts of São Paulo by IDH, according to the Municipal Atlas of 2007.

The municipality has a very high Human Development Index (HDI) (0.805), the 14th largest in the state and the 28th largest in Brazil. However, the distribution of human development in the city is not homogeneous. The most central districts in general have HDI greater than 0.9, gradually decreasing as they move away from the center, to the point of about 0.7 at the municipality's borders.

The social difference between the central regions and the outskirts is due to historical issues, since the central area, above all the one located between the Pinheiros, Tietê and Tamanduateí rivers, was the place where the investments and urban planning by the public authorities were most concentrated, as well as where, historically, almost the entire economic elite of the city was installed. The populations with the lowest income, for not having the cost of living in these areas, end up occupying the areas on the edges of the municipality, most devoid of infrastructure.

A world quality of life ranking, drawn up by the international consultancy in human resources, Mercer, points to the capital of São Paulo in 117th place between 221 cities and the third place among the four Brazilian cities in the ranking, behind only Curitiba, Florianópolis and Porto Alegre, and ahead of Brasilia. The ecological status in a parallel ranking points to the city in 148th position.

The city's Gini index, which measures social inequality, is 0.62. The districts of Vila Andrade, Vila Sônia and Tremembé have the greatest economic disparity. All the indices are published in the Atlas of Labor and Development of São Paulo, an electronic tool that houses more than two hundred socioeconomic indicators of the capital.

Immigrants and migrants

São Paulo is the most multicultural city in Brazil and one of the most diverse in the world. Since 1870, approximately 2.3 million immigrants have arrived in the state from all over the world. Today, it is the city with the largest ethnic populations in Italy, Portugal, Japan, Spanish, Lebanese and Arabic outside their respective countries, and with the largest number of northeastern countries outside the Northeast. In the 2010 census, of the total population, 60.63% were white, 30.63% brown, 6.37% black, 2.22% yellow and 0.12% indigenous, besides 0.03% undeclared.

From top, clockwise: Italian immigrants posing for photography in the central courtyard of the Immigrants' Hospital (now the Immigrant Memorial), ca. 1890; an Italian restaurant in the Bela Vista district; photos of Jewish immigrants at the Memorial da Immigration Judaeo and the Portuguese house building of São Paulo.

The Italian community is one of the strongest, with its presence in the whole city. Of the ten million inhabitants of São Paulo, 60% (six million people) have some Italian ancestry. São Paulo has more descendants of Italians than any other Italian city (the largest city in Italy is Rome, with 2.5 million inhabitants). Even today, Italians group together in districts like Bixiga, Brás and Mooca to promote celebrations and festivals. In 1870, as the beginning of the substitution of slave labor by European immigrants, the Italian population in São Paulo was 30,000 people. At the beginning of the 20th century, this population had leapt to 240,000 people. São Paulo is the second largest pizza-consuming city in the world (2007 data). There are six thousand pizza shops producing about one million pizzas a day (2008 data).

The Portuguese community is also quite numerous, and it is estimated that three million people from São Paulo have some origin in Portugal. The Jewish colony represents more than 60,000 people in São Paulo and is concentrated mainly in Higienópolis (greater presence) and Bom Retiro (a smaller presence at the moment). From the 19th century onwards, and especially during the first half of the 20th century, São Paulo also received German immigrants (in the current district of Santo Amaro), Spanish and Lithuanian (in the district of Vila Zelina). We can also highlight the important Armenian community, with its various institutions located in the vicinity of the Bom Retiro neighborhoods, near the Armenia Metro Station Imirim and Brás. The Armenians made the trade and the manufacturing of footwear their main activities. With the decadence of European and Asian immigration after the decade of the 1930s, the arrival of migrants began to predominate, in their majority coming from the Northeast region of Brazil.

The city had already had an Afrodescending population in the 19th century, but it was as from the second half of the 20th that the population of African origin grew rapidly, through the arrival of people from other Brazilian states, mainly from the coastal zone of Bahia. According to the IBGE, in the 2000 Census, 30.3% of the São Paulo population had some African descent; in other words, they declared themselves "black" and "brown".

Freedom neighborhood, Japanese community stronghold		A Syrian Bazaar in 1940

One of the most striking colonies in the city is that of Arab origin. The Lebanese and Syrians arrived in large numbers from 1900 to 1930. Today, its descendants are totally integrated with the Brazilian population, although cultural aspects of Arab origin have until today marked the culture of the São Paulo capital. Arab food restaurants are abundant all over the city, selling dishes that have now definitely entered Brazilian cuisine: chibe, esfiha, cabbage, etc. March 25th street was created by the Arabs, who were mostly traders.

The city of São Paulo has the largest number of people who declare themselves of Asian (yellow) origin in Brazil. Around 456,000 people are of oriental origin, of which 326,000 are Japanese. The city's Japanese community is the largest outside Japan. Immigrants from Japan began to arrive in 1908, and immigrated in large numbers until the 1950s. The largest concentration of orientals in the city is in the Freedom district. This district of São Paulo has numerous Japanese restaurants, stores with typical Japanese parts, and you see signs written in Japanese and you hear a lot about the language. The Korean colony of the city is also remarkable. There are over 60,000 people of South Korean origin, particularly concentrated in Bom Retiro, Aclimation and Liberty. In the Aclimação neighborhood, several Korean restaurants can be found, as well as Korean video stores and groceries. The Chinese are quite numerous in the central districts of the city, such as Brás and Liberdade. In 2016, the municipality owned at least one native resident from 196 different countries, according to data from the Federal Police Department.

Panorama of the Central Zone of São Paulo from the Altino Arantes building

Sexual diversity

The 18th edition of São Paulo's LGBT Pride Parade in 2014

Greater São Paulo houses an important community of homosexuals, bisexuals and transgenders, of which 9.6% of the male population and 7% of the female population declares themselves to be non-heterosexual. The same-sex civil union has been legalized across the country since May 5, 2011, while homosexual marriage in São Paulo was legalized on December 18, 2012. Since 1997, the city has been hosting the São Paulo LGBT Pride Parade every year, considered the world's largest LGBT parade by Guinness World Records, with more than 5 million participants. The event typically rivals the New York parade by the public record.

The event is supported by the state and municipal government. In 2010, the São Paulo City Hall invested 1 million reais (about 2,000 US dollars) at the stop and relied on a solid security plan, with around 2,000 police officers, two mobile police stations for the immediate reporting of occurrences, 30 ambulances equipped, 55 nurses, 46 doctors, three hospital camps with 80 beds. The parade, considered to be the second largest event in the city after Formula 1, begins at the São Paulo Art Museum, crosses Avenida Paulista, and follows on Consolação Street to Roosevelt Square, in the center of São Paulo. According to the Grindr application, the city's LGBT march was elected the best in the world.

Religions

The St. Square and the Metropolitan Cathedral		Inside the Monastery of São Bento

Like the cultural variety that can be verified in São Paulo, there are several religious manifestations present in the city. Although it has developed over an eminently Catholic social matrix, both because of colonization and immigration — and even today the majority of São Paulo state claims to be Catholic —, dozens of different Protestant names can currently be found in the city, as well as the practice of Islamism, spiritualism, among others.

Buddhism and oriental religions also have relevance among the beliefs most practiced by the people of São Paulo. It is estimated that there are more than a hundred thousand Buddhist, Seichonoite and Hinduist followers. The Jewish, Mormon and Afro-Brazilian communities are also considerable.

According to figures from the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE), in 2010, there were Apostolic Roman Catholic municipality (58.2%), Protestants (22.11%), Spirits (4.73%), Jehovah's Witnesses (0.9%), Buddhists (0.67%), Umbandistas well. 0.45%), Jews (0.39%), Brazilian Apostolic Catholics (0.25%), Eastern Religions (0.23%), Candomblecists (0.16%), Mormon (0.15%), Orthodox Catholics (0.13%), spiritualists (0.08%), Islamists (0.07%), esoterics (0.06%), indigenous traditions (0.02%) and Hinduists (0.01%). Another 9.38% had no religion, 1.33% followed other Christian religions, 0.5% had an undetermined religion or multiple membership, 0.13% did not know and 0.02% stated that they followed other religions.

Temple of Solomon, headquarters of the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God		São Paulo Orthodox Metropolitan Cathedral

The Catholic Church divides the territory of the municipality of São Paulo into four ecclesiastical districts: the Archdiocese of São Paulo, the Roman Catholic of Santo Amaro, the Roman Catholic of São Miguel Paulista and the Roman Catholic of Campo Limpo, the latter three being the last superfragments of the former. The archive of the archdiocese, called the Metropolitan Archive Dom Duarte Leopoldo e Silva, located in the Ipiranga district, keeps one of the most important documentary heritage in Brazil. The Holy Archieptical is the Metropolitan Cathedral of São Paulo (known as the Cathedral of the Sé), located in the Sé Square, considered one of the five largest gotic temples in the world. The Catholic Church recognizes as priests of the city of São Paulo de Tarso and Our Lady of Penha de France.

The city has the most diverse Protestant or retired creeds, such as the Evangelical Community Sahara Terra, the Maranata Christian Church, the Lutheran Church, the Presbyterian Church, the Methodist Church, the Anglican Episcopal Church, the Baptist churches, the Assembly of God Church, the Seventh Day Adventist Church, the World Church of the Power of God, the Universal Church of the Kingdom of the Kingdom of God The Christian Congregation in Brazil, among others, besides Christians of various other names.

Public security and crime

Training of PMESP soldiers at the Military Police Academy of the White Barro

In 2008, the city of São Paulo ranked 493rd on the list of Brazil's most violent cities. Among the capitals, it was the fourth least violent, recording, in 2006, murder rates higher than those of Boa Vista, Palmas and Natal. In November 2009, the Ministry of Justice and the Brazilian Public Security Forum released a survey that pointed to São Paulo as the safest Brazilian capital for young people. Between 2000 and 2010, the city of São Paulo reduced its homicide rate by 78%.

According to the Global Homicide Study 2011, released by the United Nations (UN), in the period from 2004 to 2009 the homicide rate fell from 20.8 to 10.8 murders per hundred thousand inhabitants. In 2011, the UN pointed out São Paulo as an example of how large cities can reduce crime. In a survey on the Adolescence Homicide Index (IHA) in 2010, the city of São Paulo was considered the least lethal for adolescents, out of 283 municipalities surveyed, with more than one hundred thousand inhabitants. According to data from the "Map of Violence 2011", published by the Sangari Institute and by the Ministry of Justice, in that year the city of São Paulo had the lowest homicide rate per hundred thousand inhabitants among all the Brazilian capitals.

The crime indicators, such as homicide, according to April 2017 data, showed a reduction in the capital city of São Paulo, compared with 2016. In the same period, there was a 12.64% reduction in homicides, the number of records of latrocination fell from eleven to seven (a reduction of 34%), and there was a reduction of 8.09% in cases of rape. The 9th DP of the Carandiru neighborhood was considered in March 2007, one of the top five police stations in the world and the best in Latin America.

The Matarazzo Building, the headquarters of the São Paulo City Hall

Because it is the capital of the state of São Paulo, the city is the seat of the Bandeirantes Palace (State Government) and of the Legislative Assembly.

The Executive Power of the municipality of São Paulo is represented by the mayor and his secretary's office, following the model proposed by the Federal Constitution. The organic law of the municipality and the current Master Plan of the city, however, determine that the public administration must guarantee the population effective tools for demonstrating participative democracy, which means that the city is divided into subprefectures, each one of which is led by a submayor appointed by the mayor.

The Legislative Power is represented by the municipal council, which consists of 55 councilors elected to office for four years (in accordance with Article 29 of the Constitution, which governs a minimum of 42 and a maximum of 55 for municipalities with more than five million inhabitants). It is up to the house to draw up and vote on fundamental laws for the administration and the executive, especially the municipal budget (known as the Budget Guidelines Law).

In addition to the legislative process and the work of the secretariats, there are also a number of municipal councils, each dealing with different themes, made up of representatives from the various sectors of organized civil society. The effective performance and representativeness of such advice, however, are sometimes questioned. The following municipal councils are currently active: Municipal Council of the Child and Adolescent (CMDCA); IT (IGH); Physical Disabilities (CMDP); education (EMC); Housing (CMH); the Environment (CADES); Health (CMS); Tourism (COMTUR); Human Rights (OHCHR); Culture (CMC); Social Assistance (COMAS) and Drugs and Alcohol (COMUDA).

Also belonging to the city hall (or this majority partner in its social capital) is a series of companies responsible for various aspects of the public services and the economy of São Paulo:

The Anchieta Palace, the headquarters of the Municipal Chamber of São Paulo

• São Paulo Tourism S/A (SPTuris): company responsible for organizing major events and promoting tourism in the city;
• Traffic Engineering Company (CET): subordinate to the Municipal Department of Transport, is responsible for the supervision of traffic, the imposition of fines (in cooperation with the DETRAN) and the maintenance of the city's road system;
• São Paulo Metropolitan Housing Company (COHAB): subordinate to the Housing Bureau, is responsible for the implementation of public housing policies, in particular the construction of housing units;
• Municipal Urbanization Company of São Paulo (EMURB): subordinate to the Planning Bureau, is responsible for urban construction and maintenance of public spaces and urban furniture;
• Information and Communication Technology Company of the Municipality of São Paulo (PRODAM): the head of the city hall's electronic and IT infrastructure;
• São Paulo Transportes Sociedade Anônima (SPTrans): responsible for the operation of the public transport systems managed by the city hall, such as municipal bus lines.

International relations

The sister cities of the city of São Paulo are regulated by Law No 14 471/2007 and other decrees.

The municipality of São Paulo is administratively divided into thirty-two regions administered by regional prefectures, each one of which is divided into districts, the latter being eventually subdivided into subdistricts (the name "district", however, does not officially exist, although it is usually applied by the population). The current districts were created by municipal law No 11 220 of 20 May 1992, and the current subprefectures by municipal law No 13 399 of 1 August 2002. The subprefectures are officially grouped into nine regions (or "zones"), taking into account the geographical position and history of occupation. Meanwhile, certain bodies and institutions (telephone companies, electoral areas, etc.) adopt a different division from the official one. It is up to the subprefectures to provide ordinary services to the population, in this way, decentralizing some routine services.

The official political division of the city takes into account both the historical and cultural characteristics of the different districts of São Paulo and practical factors (such as the division of two subprefectures into an important avenue). However, such a division often does not reflect the socio-spatial perception of the local population of the places: there are regions of the city that are not officially recognized by the city hall, so that their delimitation is informal and covers different districts and subprefectures, maintaining the name by tradition, physical contiguity or ease of localization. The phenomenon tends to repeat itself all over the city and considered in a broad manner, it may lead to the non-identification of the inhabitants with the local political bodies.

Besides the political division, there is also a division into nine geographical zones, each one of them represented by different colors on street signs and in the color of the buses that circulate in the region. These regions are established radially, using topographical criteria only, and, with a few exceptions, do not have an urban homogeneity or any administrative distinction, with the exception of the historic center and the expanded center, where the municipal rotation takes place.

Subprefectures in the municipality of São Paulo
	Region	Area	Population			Region	Area	Population
1	Aricanduva/Vila Formosa	21.5 km²	266,838		17	Mooca	35.2 km²	305,436
2	Butantan	56.1 km²	345.943		18	Painters	353.5 km²	110.909
1	Cleaned Field	36.7 km²	508.607		19	Penha	42.8 km²	472 247
4	Relief Chapel	134.2 km²	561,071		20	Turkeys	57.2 km²	109.218
5	Green House/Dog	26.7 km²	313.176		21	Pine	31.7 km²	270.798
6	Ademar City	30.7 km²	370.759		22	Pirituba/Jaraguá	54.7 km²	390,083
7	Tiradentes City	15 km²	248.762		23	Sé	26.2 km²	373 160
8	Ermelino Matarazzo	15.1 km²	204.315		24	Santana/Tucuruvi	34.7 km²	327.279
9	Freguesia of Ó/Brasilândia	31.5 km²	391,403		25	Jaçanã/Tremembé	64.1 km²	255,435
10	Guaianases	17.8 km²	283.162		26	Santo Amaro	37.5 km²	217 280
11	Ipiranga	37.5 km²	427.585		27	São Mateus	45.8 km²	422 199
12	Itaim Paulista	21.7 km²	358.888		28	São Miguel Paulista	24.3 km²	377,540
13	Itaquera	54.3 km²	488.327		29	Sapopemba	13.4 km²	296,042
14	Jabaquara	14.1 km²	214.200		30	Vila Maria/Vila Guilherme	26.4 km²	302.899
15	Lapa	40.1 km²	270.102		31	Vila Mariana	26.5 km²	311 019
16	M'Boi Mirim	62.1 km²	523.138		32	Vila Prudente	33.3 km²	480.823

B3 Quote Pane

Economic activities of the municipality

Bridge Staive, with CENU

São Paulo has the highest GDP among the Brazilian cities, the 10th largest in the world, and, according to PricewaterhouseCoopers projection, it will be the sixth largest in 2025. According to data from the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE), in 2016, its Gross Domestic Product (GDP) was 687,035,889.61 real, which is equivalent to about 11% of the Brazilian GDP, 34% of the GDP, as well as 36% of all the production of goods and services, in the state of São Paulo, and 2 11% of the economy of the southeast region.

According to a survey published by the Federation of Trade in Goods, Services and Tourism of the State of São Paulo (Fecomercio), if it were a country, the city of São Paulo could be classified as the 36th largest economy in the world, above nations like Portugal, Finland and Hong Kong. According to the same study, the municipality has 63% of the international groups installed in the country and 17 of the 20 largest banks.

Its metropolitan region has a GDP of about 613 billion reais (2009 data). According to data from the IBGE, the urban network of influence exercised by the city in the rest of the country covers 28% of the population and 40.5% of the Brazilian GDP.

The capital city of São Paulo is the sixth city in the world in number of billionaires, according to the listing of the magazine Forbes considers as a reference the main address of the 1,210 billion people on the magazine's 2011 list, based on values converted to the US dollar. However, the 2008-2009 financial crisis affected the average per capita household income of the inhabitants of São Paulo, which in 2008 was 816.40 Brazilian reais (81.40 US dollars), which positions the city in its eighth place in the Brazilian capital ranking, behind Florianópolis, Porto Alegre re, Vitória, Brasília, Curitiba, Rio de Janeiro and Belo Horizonte.

According to a survey by Mercer's consultancy on the cost of living for foreign workers, São Paulo is among the ten most expensive cities in the world, ranked 11 in 2011, 11 jobs above its 2010 rating, and in front of cities like London, Paris, Milan and New York.

Commercial buildings on Avenida Paulista

View of Itaim Bibi Region

Oscar Freire Street, in the Jardins region, elected the eighth luxurious street on the planet

One of the largest financial centers in Brazil and in the world, São Paulo is today undergoing a transformation in its economy. For a long time the industry was an economic activity very present in the city, but São Paulo has undergone a clear change in its economic profile over the last three decades: from a city with a strong industrial character, the municipality has increasingly taken on the role of a tertiary city, a service and business center for the country. In São Paulo, for example, B3 (acronym for Brazil, Bolsa, Balcão), the official scholarship of Brazil, is located. B3 had, in 2017, a 13 billion dollar asset. São Paulo ranked second after New York in the 2013/14 FDI magazine of the "Cities of the Future" in the Americas, and the Latin American city of the Future 2013/14 was named, overtaking Santiago de Chile, the first city in the previous ranking. Santiago now occupies second place, followed by Rio de Janeiro, the study also indicates that São Paulo has received more Direct Foreign Investments than New York.

The municipality has some financial centers spread over its territory, concentrated in the sub-prefectures of Sé, Pinheiros and Santo Amaro. The main and most famous of them is Avenida Paulista, which houses the seats of banks, multinationals, hotels, consulates and imposes itself as one of the main tourist and cultural points of the city. The city center, which despite being overshadowed by the latest economic centralities, houses the stock exchange, various companies and hotels. Besides these, other regions that stand out for their intense and modern vertically, for the presence of luxury hotels and multinational companies are the regions of Brigadeiro Faria Lima and Luís Carlos Berrini Avenues.

Many analysts have also pointed out São Paulo as an important "global city" (or "global metropolis", a classification divided only with Rio de Janeiro among Brazilian cities). As a global city, São Paulo has access to the world's main air routes, to the main information networks, as well as to the subsidiaries of transnational companies of global importance, as well as important financial institutions, even though they are marginally connected to the transnational flows of people, investments and jobs.

The urbanist João Sette Whitaker Ferreira, however, considers that social inequality and spatial segregation are decharacterizing São Paulo as a global city. In spite of being the country's financial center, São Paulo also has a high index of business linked to the informal economy. In this same scenario, according to 2001 data from the municipality's prefecture, about 10% of São Paulo inhabitants lived below the poverty line.

The city of São Paulo has also consolidated itself in a hub for the trade of smuggled, pirated and falsified products, in general located in some points of the city center such as the 25th of March Street, the Santa Ifigenia Street and areas close to the subway stations. The articles are usually CDs with pirated versions of software, films or albums on CDs and DVDs, or accessories and items of clothing, mainly rucksack and tennis shoes of international brands, among other articles. In recent years, however, the seizure of these pirated articles has grown.

Tourism

Independence Park, with the São Paulo Museum in the background.

Flag of the São Paulo International Art Biennial

Interior of São Paulo Municipal Market

São Paulo stands out more as a city marked by business tourism than by recreational tourism. Large hotel networks whose target audience is the corporate are installed in the city and have branch offices spread across several of their centers. All the infrastructure for the city's events makes it the headquarters of 75% of the country's main fairs. Among the main ones are the São Paulo Automobile Room, Couromoda and Francal, amongst others. The city still promotes one of the most important fashion weeks in the world, São Paulo Fashion Week, being one of the main centers that generate fashion trends.

Cultural tourism also has relevance for the city, especially when one looks at the various international events that take place in the metropolis, such as the São Paulo Art Biennial and the various spectacles of foreign celebrities that, when they present themselves in Brazil, choose few metropolises. Furthermore, the LGBT Pride Parade of São Paulo, which has been happening since 1997 on Paulista Avenue in favor of combating homophobia, is the event that attracts more tourists to the city.

The city has numerous cultural activities and a night life that is considered one of the best in the country. There are several cinemas, theaters, museums and cultural centers, some attending to the portion of greater purchasing power, others contemplating more the popular public, which leads many to say that "there is always a program to be done in São Paulo". Oscar Freire Street, according to Mystery Shopping International, was elected one of the eight luxurious streets in the world, and São Paulo, the 25th "most expensive city" on the planet.

According to the International Congress & Convention Association (ICCA), São Paulo ranks first among the cities most attending international events in America and 12th place in the world, after Vienna, Paris, Barcelona, Singapore, Berlin, Budapest, Amsterdam, Stockholm, Seoul, Lisbon and Copenhagen. According to a study by MasterCard in 130 cities around the world, the capital city of São Paulo was the third most visited destination in Latin America (behind Mexico City and Buenos Aires), with 2.4 million foreign travelers, who spent 2.9 billion dollars in 2013 (the highest figure among the cities in the region). Moreover, it is estimated that the metropolis will become the most visited in Latin America by 2017. In 2014, CNN classified night life in São Paulo as the fourth best in the world, behind only New York, Berlin and Ibiza, in Spain, which was in first place.

The diversity of peoples and cultures that have built the city also makes the rich gastronomy of the region itself a major tourist attraction. This claim can be proven by the wide variety of gastronomics in the city, which covers more than 50 types of cooking. During the 10th International Congress of Gastronomy, Hospitality and Tourism (CIHAT) held in 1997, the city received the title "World Capital of Gastronomy" from a commission made up of representatives of 43 nations. The municipality has gained ground in several international newspapers (e.g.: The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and CNN), which demonstrate the cultural plurality of the capital of São Paulo to the whole world.

Overview of the main straight line of the Autódromo José Carlos Pace (Interlagos), during the 2009 Brazil Formula One Grand Prize

View of the city from the Italian building; on the left is the Copan Building, designed by Oscar Niemeyer, and on the right the Ipiranga 165, the former headquarters of the Hilton Hotel		Altino Arantes Building (on the left), the city's third highest skyscraper, and the Anhangabaú Valley (on the right), in the São Paulo Historical Center

Since the beginning of the 20th century, São Paulo is the main economic center in Latin America. With the First and Second World Wars and the Great Depression, coffee exports to the United States and Europe were heavily affected, forcing rich coffee farmers to invest in industrial activities that would transform São Paulo into Brazil's largest industrial center. The new job vacancies have helped to attract a significant number of immigrants (mainly from Italy) and migrants, especially from the Northeast. Of a population of only 32,000 people in 1880, São Paulo now has 8.5 million inhabitants in 1980. The rapid population growth has caused numerous problems for the city.

São Paulo is practically all served by the drinking water supply network. The city consumes an average of 221 liters of water/inhabitant/day, while the UN recommends the consumption of 110 liters/day. Water loss is 30.8%. However, between 11 and 12.8% of the homes do not have a sewage system, depositing waste in ditches and ditches. Sixty percent of the sewage collected is treated. According to data from the IBGE and Eletropaulo, the electricity network serves almost 100% of the homes. The fixed telephony network is still precarious, with coverage of 67.2%. Home garbage collection covers all the regions of the municipality, but is still insufficient, reaching around 94% of the demand, in districts such as Parelheiros and Perus. Around 80% of the waste produced daily by São Paulo is exported to other cities, such as Caieiras and Guarulhos. Recycling reaches about 1% of the 15,000 tons of waste produced every day.

Urban fabrics

Favela de Paraisópolis, district of Vila Andrade, with residential buildings at the bottom		variation of urban tissue in the Jardins region; side-by-side, vertical and low-casario areas

São Paulo has a myriad of urban tissues. the city's original centers are vertical, characterized by the presence of commercial and service buildings; and the outskirts generally develop with two to four story buildings — although this generalization certainly finds exceptions in the fabric of the metropolis. Compared to other global cities (such as the island cities of New York and Hong Kong), however, São Paulo is considered a city of "low buildings." Its largest buildings rarely reach forty stories, and the average among residential buildings is twenty. However, it is the third city in the world in quantity of buildings, according to the page specialized in research into data on Emporis Buildings, besides possessing the largest skyscraper in the country, the Mirante do Vale, also known as the Zarzur Kogan Palace, 170 meters in height.

The following regions, characterized according to their urban fabric, are common:

Torres de Avenida Paulista

Vertical region of São João Avenue in the Center of São Paulo

Altino Arantes Building, which has already been considered the largest reinforced concrete structure in the world, seen from the Industrial Palace

Martinelli building, the oldest skyscraper in Latin America

• Casario consisting of middle-class nephews, indented from the lot, in predominantly residential or commercial districts;
• Peripheries where the land-use legislation is less respected, made up of nephews or terrain residences but with a greater density than the above-mentioned casario;
• middle-class districts, normally located in a peripheral ring immediately following the city center, but not as distant as the extreme outskirts, occupied by vertical condominiums (apartment buildings isolated in the middle of the lot, containing almost 50% of free space and normally of private access);
• Vertical areas of the city center, with a significant variation in the ratio between the width of the street and the height of the buildings;
• New vertical regions with lower-back buildings with higher car presence (such as Nova Faria Lima and the Luís Carlos Berrini avenue);
• Regions of horizontal closed condominiums with restricted access;
• Regions traditionally characterized as shantytowns.

Such tissue heterogeneity, however, is not as predictable as the generic model can imagine. Some central regions of the city have started to concentrate destitute areas, drug trafficking, street trading and prostitution, which has encouraged the creation of new centers from the socio-economic point of view. The characterization of each region of the city also went through several changes in the course of the 20th century. With the displacement of industries to other cities or states, several areas that previously housed sheds of factories transformed themselves into commercial or even residential areas.

The most characterized change in the economic profile of the city, though, is the so-called southwest vetora, an area of the city that encompasses the western and central-south regions. The term refers to the trend of the real estate market (and of companies in general) in "taking" the city center to regions previously considered peripheral, generally following the north-east-south-west direction, with a few exceptions. This trend can be followed from the first decades of the 20th century: starting from the region of the historical Triangle (the city's original nucleus), the socio-economic centrality of the city (which differs from the geographical centrality) passed to the region of the Novo Center (on the other side of the Anhangabaú valley), and later to the region of Avenida Paulista.

In the last two decades of the 20th century, this process has led to such centrality mainly to the Faria Lima and Berrini avenues. Outside this region, there are also other areas such as the districts of Tatuape and Santana, which have also developed and become regional socio-economic centers, also acting as a hub for trade, services and leisure to other localities outside the main development axis of the municipality.

In most cases, the regions which remain remote from these centers end up serving as dormant districts. This is due to the urban planning process of the city throughout the 20th century, which kept the areas of popular housing isolated from the main centers of the municipality. Population growth has been associated with property speculation processes that have accelerated the occupation of peripheral areas with little infrastructure, in some cases fostered by the state urban development programs of popular housing. In the last few decades, some low income families have gone on to occupy regions of water sources irregularly.

The constant change in the São Paulo landscape due to the technological changes in its buildings has been a remarkable characteristic of the city, pointed out by scholars as Benedito Lima de Toledo. According to Toledo, in a period of one century, between the mid-1870s and 1970s, the city of São Paulo was practically demolished and reconstructed at least three times. These three periods are characterized by the typical construction processes of their epochs: at the first moment, the city presented itself as an entanglement of buildings in a bead of pilon, a situation that lasted from the colonial period until the last decades of the 19th century.

At the beginning of the 20th century, the city was quickly transformed and became a city of masonry, importing European construction methods and architectures. In short, with the need for vertically expansion and the popularization of technological advances, the city was again demolished and reconstructed in reinforced concrete and metal, making up part of the current landscape. From each of the previous periods, few copies remain: a few preserved flag homes and the Sacred Art Museum of São Paulo are the only remnants of the "city of taipa". Similarly, the "city of masonry" still preserves buildings such as the State Art Museum.

However, according to data from the 2000 IBGE census, from the SEADE foundation and from research carried out by the city hall of São Paulo in the period 2000-2004, the municipality had up until that moment a deficit of approximately 800,000 housing units. According to these surveys, this would amount to approximately three million citizens without access to formal housing or precarious housing: these figures include the population of illegal and irregular building lots, the inhabitants of shantytowns and the inhabitants of slums. This deficit, according to some authors, would amount to approximately one tenth of the entire national housing deficit (estimated at approximately eight million units). In 2006, of the 1,522,986 km² of the municipality of São Paulo, 31 km² were occupied by more than two thousand slums.

Alongside the problem of the housing deficit, the fact is that, according to data still from the research into census districts of the IBGE and the SEADE foundation, every year the central areas of the city - corresponding to the traditional central regions and those linked to the aforementioned southwest vetora - show a negative rate of population growth (of -5% between 2000 and 20 8).

Urban planning

The city seen from the Altino Arantes building

The Anhangabaú valley, in the Center, with a highlight for the Post Office Palace on the left and for the Mirante do Vale and the Viaduto Santa Ifigenia on the right

Avenida Paulista, an important financial center in the city

São Paulo has a history of actions, projects and plans linked to urbanism and urban planning that can be drawn up to the administrations of Antônio da Silva Prado, Baron de Duprat, Washington Luís and completed by Francisco Prestes Maia. However, in a general manner, the city was formed in the course of the twentieth century, jumping from village to metropolis, by means of a series of informal or irregular urban expansion processes.

In this way, São Paulo differs considerably from Brazilian cities like Belo Horizonte and Goiânia, whose initial expansion followed the determinations of an original urban plan and project, or from a city like Brasilia, whose pilot plan had been entirely designed prior to the construction of the city.

On the other hand, the succession of peripheral building lots and of the processes of reclassifying and reconstructing the already established tissues, common in the city during the course of its evolution, was eventually accompanied by urban plans that tried to order, according to planning directives, the informal logic of the constitution of the city. If the first interventions by Prado and Teodoro were of a one-off nature, these plans sought, sometimes sectorally integrated and sometimes isolated, the definition of standards to be followed in the production of new urban areas and in the regulation of the previous ones.

The historical effectiveness of such plans in complying with what they apparently proposed, however, has been pointed out by several planners and historians as questionable. On the other hand, others of these same scholars claim that such plans were produced with a view to the exclusive benefit of the wealthy classes of the population, while the popular classes would be relegated to the informal traditional processes.

In São Paulo, up until the mid-1950s, the plans presented for the city still had a Haussmannian character, that is, based on the idea of "demolishing and rebuilding". Plans such as those presented by the then mayor Prestes Maia for the São Paulo road system (known as the Avenue Plan) or Saturnino de Brito for the marginals of the Tietê river can be cited.

In 1968, the Basic Urban Plan was proposed that would unfold into the Integrated Master Plan for Development of São Paulo, developed during Dr. Figueiredo Ferraz's administration. The main result of this plan was what became known as the zoning law and which lasted until 2004, when it was replaced by the current master plan. In that zoning, approved in 1972, there was a clear protection for the so-called Z1 (areas whose definition of use was exclusively residential and intended for the city's elite) and a certain indefinition of the greater part of the city, classified as Z3 (vaguely regulated as a "mixed zone" but without clearer definitions about its characteristics). In this way, such zoning encouraged the growth of outlying districts with low-caliber buildings coupled with property speculation processes while at the same time valuing regions in which high-rise buildings were allowed to be built.

Central region of the city visited by the Italian building

Health

Cancer Institute, part of the Clinicas Hospital complex

São Paulo is one of the main health centers in Latin America. Among its best hospitals are the Israeli Albert Einstein Hospital, classified as the best in Latin America, the Clinical Hospital of the University of São Paulo, the largest Latin American hospital complex, the Syrio-Lebanese Hospital and the Cancer Institute, the largest oncology center in Latin America.

The municipality is the headquarters of institutions of all three levels of government: federal, state and municipal. The private health sector is also relevant and the major part of the best Brazilian hospitals are located in the city. Public health services are generally the responsibility of the municipal government and are spread throughout the municipal territory, with a total of 770 basic health units (basic healthcare units), ambulatory and emergency clinics, and 17 hospitals.

The Municipal Health Bureau has 59,000 employees, among them more than 8,000 doctors and 12,000 nurses. In September 2009, the city of São Paulo had 32,553 outpatient clinics, centers and offices of professionals (doctors, dentists and others); 217 hospitals with 32 554 beds; 137 745 health professionals, of which 28 316 are doctors.

Urban mobility and accessibility

Marginal Tietê, the city's main express route

The city of São Paulo is suffering from a problem common to other major world metropolises: the major congestion of cars on their main roads. Collective transport, however, plays a fundamental role in the daily life of the metropolis. São Paulo has an immense structure of bus lines, with a fleet of around fifteen thousand units between common and articulated buses (around 10 thousand), trolley bus (215 vehicles) and micro-bus (around 5 thousand). In 2003, a major overhaul started in the city's public transport system, which significantly reduced the large number of clandestine lotions, which in the majority of cases were registered and organized into cooperatives.

In the city, on average, there is one vehicle for every two inhabitants, totaling more than 6 million units only. Furthermore, São Paulo has the third largest fleet of taxis in Latin America and the largest fleet of helicopters in the world.

The CPTM trains, the Metro and the interconnecting system between them complete the municipal and state transport system in the city.

The municipality's road system is particularly heterogeneous, especially from the road point of view. The city is cut down by two major routes that have a structuring role, both on the infraurban and the metropolitan scale: Marginal Tietê and Marginal Pinheiros. These two "arteries" are considered to be the main structural (or expressed) pathways of the municipality, with several state and federal highways connected to them, including Anchieta, Anhanguera, Raposo Tavares, Dutra (access to the Paraíba Valley and Rio de Janeiro), Fernão Dias (access to Belo Horizonte), Immigrants (Immigrants) access to Praia Grande), Bandeirantes (access to the Campinas region), Castelo Branco and Ayrton Senna (access to Guararema). The Mário Covas Roundring is under construction, which will allow access to various municipalities in the metropolitan region of São Paulo.

Southern stretch of the Mário Covas Roundring

Octavio Frias de Oliveira Bridge and Marginal Pinheiros

Commercial aircraft at São Paulo-Congonhas Airport

Terminal 3 of São Paulo-Guarulhos International Airport

With a fleet of 5 392 692 vehicles in 2007, it is estimated that São Paulo has reached a motorization rate of 0.454 vehicles per inhabitant, which corresponds roughly to one vehicle for every two inhabitants. The average rate in Brazil is 0.24, which puts São Paulo among the municipalities with the highest level of motorization in the country, exceeded only by some such as São Caetano do Sul (0.739), Curitiba (0.545) and Goiânia (0.512).

Vehicle congestion in the city is recurring, mainly but not restricted, to peak times. Since 1996, the city hall has been adopting palliative measures to alleviate the problems caused by the traffic, such as the adoption of the Municipal Cirnicit, the restriction of parking lots (Blue Zone) and the circulation of trucks and cargo vehicles. The city's congestion record was 344 km in May 2014.

Today, as measures to solve the traffic problem, the expansion of the subway is being invested in the construction of more bus corridors, the expansion of the Tietê Ring and the construction of the Metropolitan Ring, and there are studies for the future implementation of urban toll.

With regard to air transport, the city has two main airports: Congonhas/São Paulo airport, which serves domestic flights and the São Paulo-Guarulhos International Airport, located in the municipality of Guarulhos, which serves domestic and international flights, being one of the main international airports in Brazil, besides these airports, has the Mars Field Airport that serves for helicopters and small aircraft. With the exception of Guarulhos International Airport, granted to the initiative approved by the federal government, all these airport centers are operated by the state-owned Infraero.

Public transport

Tietê Road Terminal, the second largest road terminal in the world, behind only the PABT in New York

TUE CPTM 7000 series at the light rail station; together, the networks of urban trains and subways cover more than 330 kilometers

Monotrilho of the São Paulo Metro Line 15

Intermodal Terminal Pinheiros, connecting EMTU, CPTM and subway lines

Public transport systems also have a degree of heterogeneity and, possibly, some contradiction. Criticism of the system is common in the sense that the various systems that make it up do not respond to the same planning authority, which would result in paradoxical situations and duplication of effort. This is primarily due to the fact that the two main means of public transport (the subway and the buses) are administered by different spheres: the Metro de São Paulo, Companhia Paulista de Trens Metropolitanos (CPTM) and the São Paulo Metropolitan Transport Company (EMTU) are companies whose main partner is the State of São Paulo, while the system of municipal buses (made up of several private companies) responds to São Paulo Transportes (SPTrans), a municipal entity.

In the northern part of the city is the Tietê Road Terminal, the second largest in the world, which has bus lines for several municipalities in São Paulo and for many other states in the country, besides lines for other South American countries, such as Chile, Argentina, Paraguay, Uruguay and Peru. It is integrated into the Portuguese-Tietê subway station. There are also other road terminals, such as Barra Funda Intermodal Terminal (west zone), with destinations for other Brazilian states, and the Jabaquara Intermunicipal Terminal (south zone), with bus lines for several cities on the São Paulo coast.

The city's subway rail network is 335 kilometers in length, 75 kilometers from lines administered by the São Paulo Metro (34.6 kilometers entirely underground), with five lines in operation and 63 shipping stations, and 258 kilometers from lines administered by the São Paulo Metropolitan Trens Company (CPTM). The CPTM and Metro carry an average of 5.9 million people a day, and some underground lines that are being built will add even more passengers to the system within the next five years.

According to data from the current administration, the expectation is to expand the system of urban trains in São Paulo to more than 500 kilometers over the next 10 years. The Metros, the world's main metrology sector award, held a conference on March 23, 2010, in the United Kingdom, which analyzed the 70 largest metropolitans in the world, which resulted, as in São Paulo, in the best subway in the Americas, outperforming the United States, Canada and Mexico.

Education and science

University City of the University of São Paulo (USP)

Pasteur Institute on Avenida Paulista

The city of São Paulo has a public and private primary and secondary education system and a variety of technical school professionals. With 2,725 primary schools, 2,998 pre-school units and 1,199 high school schools, the city's education network is the largest in the country. In total, there are 2,850,133 registrations and 153,284 registered professors. Contemplated by a significant number of renowned teaching institutions and centers of excellence, São Paulo is Brazil's largest research and development center, responsible for 28% of Brazil's scientific production (according to 2005 data) and for more than 40% of the patents produced in the country.

In 2010, IDH's education factor in the municipality reached the 0.725 mark - a level considered high, in accordance with the standards of the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) - while the illiteracy rate indicated by the latest IBGE demographic census was 4.9%, higher than the percentage found in the cities of Curitiba, Porto Alegre, Florire anopolis, Rio de Janeiro, Vitória and Belo Horizonte. The best districts classified by IDH in education are Moema, Jardim Paulista and Pinheiros, the worst of them are Marsilac, Jardim Ângela and Grajaú.

Based on the 2007 report from the Index of Basic Education Development (IDEB in the Portuguese acronym), São Paulo has obtained ninth place among the Brazilian capitals. In the 2007 General Classification of the National High School Examination (ENEM), three schools in the city were among the top 20 in the exam, the Vertice, Bandeirantes and Móbile colleges being the third, 14th and 20th in the exam. However - and in line with the large contrasts in the metropolis -, in some peripheral and impoverished regions, the secondary and basic level of public education is still in deficit, given the relative scarcity of schools or resources. In these places, violence tends to impose certain barriers to the use of schooling, and is one of the main causes of evasion or of learning that is charitable.

Butantã Institute, one of the world's main scientific centers

Mackenzie Presbyterian University

In the current scenario, important public and private universities stand out, many of them considered as centers of reference in certain areas. Among the many higher education institutions, one can highlight the Federal Institute of São Paulo (IFSP), the Federal University of São Paulo (UNIFESP), the São Paulo State University (UNESP) and the University of São Paulo (USP), created in 1934, when it incorporated the historic São Paulo Law School, in the Largo de São Francisco.

Among the public universities, USP is the one with the highest number of undergraduate and postgraduate places in Brazil, also being responsible for the formation of the largest number of masters and doctors in the world, as well as responsible for half of all the scientific production in the state of São Paulo and more than 25% of the Brazilian one. As Brazil accounts for about 2% of world production, it can be said that USP is responsible for 0.5% of the world's research.

Institutions affiliated with USP include the Butantan Institute, a biomedical research center founded in 1901, and currently linked to the São Paulo Health Bureau, manufatures antigens and various vaccines, and is the largest national producer of anti-ophidian serums. The center of renown international in scientific research on venomous animals has 14 laboratories and a biotechnology nucleus.

The municipality also has private universities with a high national and international reputation, such as the Fine Arts University Center of São Paulo, the Pontifical Catholic University of São Paulo (PUC-SP) and the Mackenzie Presbyterian University, besides several institutes of higher education and research in specific areas, among which the Armando Álvares Penteado Foundation (FAAP) (engineering, arts and human sciences), the Getê Foundation, úlio Vargas (FGV) (administration and law) and the Higher School of Advertising and Marketing (ESPM).

Cultural Turn of 2007, near the Municipal Theater

Municipal Theater of São Paulo

São Paulo State Art Museum

Library Mário de Andrade

São Paulo is considered a cultural center in Brazil, having consolidated itself as the place of origin of a whole series of artistic and esthetic movements throughout the history of the twentieth century. In spite of the fact that the status of the country's main cultural institutions has traditionally been rivaled with Rio de Janeiro, it is in São Paulo that there is the largest market for culture, having today consolidated itself as one of the main cultural capitals of Brazil and Latin America.

The culture of the city of São Paulo was largely influenced by the various groups of immigrants that established themselves there, mainly Italians. São Paulo has a wide network of theaters, show and show houses, bars and major cultural events such as the São Paulo Biennial, the Cultural Turn and the São Paulo Jazz Festival. Educational institutions, museums and art galleries often employ superlatives in their descriptions (for example, it is the largest public university in the country — the University of São Paulo — the largest private university — the Paulista University — and the largest house of spectacles in the country, Credicard Hall).

Among the city's most famous museums are the São Paulo Art Museum (MASP), the Ipiranga Museum, the Sacra Art Museum, the Portuguese Language Museum, the São Paulo State Art Museum, among other renowned institutions. It also houses one of the five largest zoos in the world, the São Paulo Zoo Park.

Literature

Literature in the city of São Paulo begins with the arrival of missionaries from the Company of Jesus, whose members are known as Jesuits, at the beginning of the sixteenth century. The Jesuit priests Manuel da Nóbrega and José de Anchieta are considered the founders of the São Paulo capital.

During the 19th century the city had great names of literature such as the writer Álvares de Azevedo, representative of the ultra-romantic phase of romanticism. However, São Paulo writers only achieved cultural independence and national projection at the beginning of the twentieth century, with the Brazilian modernist movement, mainly after the Week of Modern Art was held in 1922. During this time important writers of Brazilian literature such as Mário de Andrade and Oswald de Andrade appeared, responsible for the introduction of modernism in the country and producers of an extensive and important literary, dramatic and critical work for Brazilian culture.

Music

OSESP in the São Paulo Room, classified as one of the top ten concert houses in the world by the Guardian

The city has renowned names such as Adoniran Barbosa, whose most remembered successes are Saudosa Maloca and Trem das Eleven, and the Demons of Garoa, a samba group from the 1940s still in activity considered the "Oldest Vocal Set of Brazil in Activity". The municipality was also the birthplace of various rock bands in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s, such as The Mutantes, Ultraje a Rigor and the Titans.

Among the contemporary São Paulo singers of greatest recognition are artists such as Ana Cañas, Criolo, Emicida, Maria Gadú, Maria Rita, Mallu Magalhães, Marcelo Jeneci, Raciones MC's, Tiê, among others. São Paulo is also one of the main classical music centers in Brazil, being the birthplace of internationally recognized composers such as Osvaldo Lacerda and Amaral Vieira, and the stage during the whole year of concert and opera performances in their various rooms, such as the Sala São Paulo, the Municipal Theater of São Paulo, the São Pedro Theater and the Alfa Theater. The São Paulo State Symphony Orchestra (Osesp) is considered the best symphony group in Latin America.

Media

Folha Group Headquarters

São Paulo is one of the main communication centers in Brazil and Latin America, since it brings together in its territory the headquarters of several large communication groups. Two of the country's most influential newspapers are published in the city, both with an international reputation: Folha de S.Paulo and O Estado de S. Paulo (the oldest newspaper in the city still in circulation).

In the field of television, the city was a pioneer with the creation of the country's first broadcaster, TV Tupi, by businessman Assis Chateaubriand, in September 1950. The city was also a pioneer in advertising, with the first advertising agency in the country, called "The Eclética", installed in it in 1914. Currently, the municipality is a major national and international advertising center. São Paulo also concentrates a large number of publishers that produce some of the main publications in Brazil. Among them is the April Group.

Sports

Allianz Parque, the arena of the Palmeiras Sports Society		Arena Corinthians, one of the 2014 World Cup and 2016 Olympic Games

The city is home to sporting events of national and international importance, such as the Brazil Formula 1 Grand Prize, held at the Interlagos automobile, the São Paulo Indy 300, an event that is part of the IndyCar Series and is held in the Anhembi Circuit, and the São Paulo Tennis Open, held in the Villa-Lobos Park Tennis Complex.

The traditional São Silvestre Race is also taking place in the city. Among the main events in which São Paulo was headquartered are the 1950 FIFA World Cup, the 1963 Pan American Games and the 2000 Interclubs World Cup, as well as being the host city that received the 2014 FIFA World Cup (and five more matches from the same tournament). The city also has a Jockey Club, where the first race took place on October 29, 1876.

The municipality is the headquarters of three major Brazilian football clubs: Palm trees, Corinthians, and São Paulo. In addition to the so-called "Trio de Ferro", it also has other football associations, such as the Portuguese, Juventus, the National and Barcelona football clubs.

2012 San Silvestre International Race, one of the oldest in South America		Autodrome de Interlagos during the 2015 Brazilian Formula 1 Grand Prize

Besides the current clubs, São Paulo had several historical clubs in the "Amateur Era of Football Paulista" that conquered the São Paulo Football Championship at the beginning of the 20th century, making the most of São Paulo Athletic, the first São Paulo champion and the only Brazilian club through which Charles Miller played soccer to Brazil, Paulistan and AA of the Palm Trees that his dissidents would join together to form São Paulo FC, the Germania that was obliged to change its name during World War II and went on to be called Sports Club Pinheiros, which up until today is an important club in the city, the American, International and São Bento complete the historical clubs of São Paulo that conquered the São Paulo Championship.

The city has five large stadiums: Morumbi from São Paulo FC; Pacaembu, municipal government; the arena Allianz Parque da S.E. palm trees; Canindé Stadium, a Portuguese sports stadium and the Arena do Corinthians, of Sport Club Corinthians Paulista, located in Itaquera, in the eastern part of the city, with a planned capacity of 48,000 people. It also has several volleyball and basketball gymnasiums, tennis courts, and many other sports arenas, such as Ibirapuera's Stadium, intended mainly for athleticism.

Cícero Pompeu de Toledo Stadium (Morumbi), the headquarters of São Paulo Football Club

Lists

City

• Official site
• Twitter City
• YouTube City Hall
• Official Journal

Camera

• Official site
• Camera on Twitter
• YouTube camera

Others

• São Paulo on WikiMapia
• "São Paulo 450 years old" 
• Map of monuments and sculptures in the city of São Paulo; Wikidata view