With Brazil in evidence in the coming years, for sure you will see, read, hear someone talk about this so quaint city: São Paulo
São Paulo is definitely not an easy city to be understood
Founded by Portuguese Jesuit priests in 1554, hence its name "saint paul", the city was the following centuries being a small village, and only in the late 19th century and early 20th century began to emerge as a relatively big city, with the second half of the 20th century onwards made it one of the largest urban areas in the world.
Receiving immigrants from various parts of the world, especially after the First and Second World Wars, São Paulo has one of the largest ethnic mixes on planet. Portuguese, italian, japanese, lebanese, syrians, turks, jews, armenians, germans, russians, chinese, bulgarian, croatian, slovenian, spanish, estonian, korean, bolivians, angolans, nigerians, senegalese, peruvian, south american indians and many other human groups have shaped the face of so-called "paulistanos" (Gentile for those born in Sao Paulo).
Some immigrant groups have had much influence on the daily lives of São Paulo, which even changed the language and customs basic. The italian presence in São Paulo, for example, is so strong that the portuguese language was strongly influenced by the italian accent and today has become a trademark accent of São Paulo, as they say it is "sung".
This multiethnic São Paulo is without doubt the greatest wealth of the city.
Visually speaking São Paulo is chaotic, has no definite aesthetic identity. Its growing very fast and disorderly resulted in the puzzle of architectural styles and landscapes, with almost total absence of an urban model.
Walking by São Paulo is visually very different from European cities and U.S., which are mostly planned and follow a standard urban. In São Paulo, the ugly and the beautiful, decadent and luxurious mostly live together, are in the same neighborhood on the same street, in the same block, so without much geographic division.
São Paulo is an ocean of paradoxes.
The city of São Paulo is a very rich city, the richest city in the southern hemisphere and Latin America, but full of social inequality, has the largest luxury market in the southern hemisphere, but which shares space with the various slums that the city has scattered throughout the suburb.
Jews, arabs and muslims , live in complete harmony in the city and in the same neighborhoods. Many are friends. Others historical enemies as turks and armenians also. Japanese, chinese and korean are mixed up in the same neighborhoods.
São Paulo celebrates every year the world's largest gay parade on the streets, and a week after, the largest evangelical christian parade .
The city has the best public university in Latin America and some of the worst public funtamental schools.
The city of São Paulo is the birthplace of democracy in Brazil, headquarters of the main political parties, newspapers, magazines, publishing houses, television channels and internet, but on the other hand has a truculent police coming from the military dictatorship in the 60s and 70s.
São Paulo has one of the biggest lobbying, corruption and speculation in the property market, able to destroy and build an entire neighborhood in a snap, but the city does not allow the construction of high rises, saying that disrupts air traffic
All these contradictions, some even absurd, that make the city of São Paulo is so difficult to be understood even by ourselves we were born here.
Therefore, as someone once said, São Paulo is a city not for beginners. And to help all of you and myself to better understand the city of São Paulo, I will use my photographic eye to capture and share this crazy city.
Thank You
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