CONTENIDO GENERAL

CONTEXT

LOCATION AND STATUS

The São Paulo metropolitan region, including the City of São Paulo, is located in São Paulo State in south-eastern Brazil. The City of São Paulo is the state capital. The metropolitan region is the largest and most complex urban region in Brazil – and, in fact, in all of Latin America.

HISTORY

São Paulo was established by Jesuit missionaries in the mid-sixteenth century. With its excellent location near both the coast and the fertile land in the west, São Paulo rapidly developed as a base for the Portuguese bandeirantes (explorers, prospectors, and slave-masters) who were exploring and exploiting the southern interior of Brazil. In the 17th century, São Paulo became one of the gateways to the gold discovered in the nearby region of Minas Gerais. The associated trade and wealth-generation led to investments in sugar plantations and further economic activity. In 1711, São Paulo was officially declared a city; and in the 19th century, a massive boom in coffee produc- tion led to growing prosperity, and to the arrival of waves of immigrants. They came first from

São Paulo Metropolitan Region (20 million) Metro Region Campistas

(3 million) _{dos Campos} Sao Jose

(0.6m) Jundia (0.4m) Sorocabo (1.4m) Baixada BRAZIL

» São Bernardo do Campo (0.77 million) » Osasco (0.7 million)

» Santo André (0.68 million) » Diadema (0.42 million) » Mauá (0.4 million) » Carapicuíba (0.4 million) » Itaquaquecetuba (0.35 million) » Suzano (0.29 million)

» Embu das Artes (0.26 million)

The core city of São Paulo is the financial and business heart of the region. Densely populat- ed Osasco, immediately to the west of São Paulo, has also transitioned from an industrial to a high-order tertiary economy. Guarulhos, to the east of the core – the second-largest city in the agglomeration – is an industrial node, but also the location of Brazil’s largest major international airport. São Bernardo do Campo to the south is the historical centre of the automobile industry in Brazil, but is now a focus of hi-tech industry. The adjacent city of Mauá has a large petrochemical complex, including the refineries of state-owned Petrobas. A number of the smaller cities special- ise in particular industries, for example Diadema (in healthcare) and Embu das Artes (in the arts). Spatial policy recognises four concentric rings of development in the metropolitan region, each with their own challenges:

» The Central Areas, which are well provided for in terms of services and infrastructure. In the 1990s there was a ‘hollowing out’ of these areas, as middle-class households moved into gated estates on the city’s edge; but there was a reversal in the 2000s, with a return to central areas. These areas have densified, with high-rise development.

» The Intermediate Areas, which are high-rise and high-density, with intense residential occupa- tion – but they are also nodes of mixed-use activity, and still require significant investment in infrastructure, jobs and services. There are also underutilised industrial areas which are now being targeted for densification and mixed-use development.

» The Peripheral Areas, which are mainly occupied by a low-income population living in irregu- lar settlements (favelas), subject to serious environmental risk. However, there are also impor- tant tertiary and business centres in nodes on the edge (e.g. in Osasco, Santo André, and São Bernando do Campo), as well as fortified enclaves of high-income development.

» The Conservation Areas, which are still not formally urbanised and are critical for water pro- duction in the city, but which are under pressure from irregular urban development.

ECONOMY

IN 2014, the metropolitan region had a GDP of USD 430 billion (Brookings). This made São Paulo the fourth-largest urban economy in the BRICS (after Shanghai, Moscow and Beijing). São Paulo contributed around 16% of Brazil’s GDP. Although this is a significant contribution, in relative terms it has declined steadily, due to the decentralisation of economic activity away from this historical economic core, and growth in the more peripheral regions of the country. In 1970, the São Paulo metropolitan region contributed a massive 43% of the national GDP.

southern Europe, then from East Asia, and finally from all other parts of Brazil. This established São Paulo as Brazil’s most multicultural city.

The coffee industry collapsed in the 1920s; but by then, São Paulo was well established as an urban agglomeration, with extensive infrastructure connecting the city to the interior. The city industri- alised rapidly from the 1930s on, supported by a federal policy of import-substituting industrialisa- tion. In the 1950s, for example, São Paulo was established as a centre for the automobile industry. In the period 1950 to 2000, São Paulo went through a massive demographic transformation; its population expanded five-fold, as migrants poured in from all parts of Brazil and internationally. São Paulo developed into one of the world’s great mega-cities. In the 1970s, its economy diversi- fied, as services sectors began expanding. Industrial production contracted in the 1980s, and the city suffered a severe economic recession. In the 1990s began a process of economic restructuring, as industry dispersed from the core to a region within a radius of 150km. The prosperity of the core was re-established, with rapid growth of high-order services, including finances. The previous rapid population growth slowed down considerably. As the core prospered, so rising land prices and a high cost of living led to the displacement of the poorer segments of the population to the metropolitan edge.

POPULATION

POPULATION SIZE

The UN Population Division estimates a 2015 population for the São Paulo metropolitan region of around 21.07 million, which forms the largest component of the extended metropolitan region, which has a total population of around 32.2 million.

POPULATION RANKING

The UN Population Divisions ranks the São Paulo metropolitan region fourth globally after Tokyo, Delhi and Shanghai; third in the BRICS; and first in both Brazil and Latin America as a whole. POPULATION GROWTH

Population growth rates are continuing to decline. They peaked at around 6.5% per annum in the 1960s; but the UN Population Division estimates current annual growth to be only around 1.38%. POPULATION DIVERSITY

The ethnic breakdown of the City of São Paulo, according to the 2010 Census, was 65.6% white, 26.5% mixed race, 5.5% black, 2.2% Asian, and 0.2% Amerindian, making the city significantly more white than Brazil as a whole. Most residents of São Paulo are descendants of immigrants from Europe, with the largest number from Italy, followed by Portugal, Spain, Germany, France and Greece. Although this was a city created through transnational migration, the percentage of foreign-born residents has been dropping steadily, and is now only around 1.3% (although this may not take adequate account of the growing numbers of migrant workers from Bolivia, Para- guay, Haiti and some countries in Africa).

STRUCTURE OF THE METROPOLITAN REGION

Around one-half of the population of the RMSP is within the City of São Paulo, with the re- maining half contained in 38 other urban municipalities. The largest cities in the urban agglom- eration are:

» City of São Paulo (11.25 million)

structures of the RMSP assist in managing this massive urban region, but can hardly resolve all the challenges of coordination. In addition, a more bottom-up approach has emerged, with seven mu- nicipalities in the south-east of the metropolitan region coming together to form the ABC Region, with collaborative structures including the municipalities but also business and civil society.

DEVELOPMENT CHALLENGES

São Paulo is a global metropolitan region of extreme inequality, with an affluent, international- ly-oriented elite. The UN Habitat places the Gini coefficient of São Paulo at 0.56, marginally lower than the national 0.59. This is extremely high in global terms, and exceeded in the BRICS only by cities in South Africa. There are spatial divisions in terms of poverty, with higher incomes in the core of the city-region and greater poverty along the spatial periphery.

In recent decades, the City of São Paulo has made good progress with the reduction of poverty and improvements in the standard of living. This was partly because of progress in Brazil generally, but also because lower-income people were gradually being displaced from the urban core. The Hu- man Development Index (HDI) for the Municipality of São Paulo improved significantly, from 0.626 in 1991 to 0.805 in 2010. However, the recent economic recession is threatening to reverse some of these gains. In 2016, the unemployment rate for the metropolitan region was 8.3%, gradually trending upwards, with the worst levels of unemployment on the metropolitan edge.

São Paulo is known for its large informal settlements, or favelas, mainly on marginal, risky land. There was indeed massive expansion in favelas until the 1990s, at which time around 20% of the population lived in these areas. However, there has been a steady decline, with the proportion decreasing to 14% in 2007. The 2010 national census indicated that 9.94% of the households in the municipality of São Paulo lived in ‘sub-normal accommodation’, although the proportion is higher in some of the outlying municipalities. The figures for Guarulhos and São Bernardo do Campo were 16% and 18% respectively.

With a relatively stable population the São Paulo metropolitan region has been able to improve its levels of infrastructure and servicing, even within the favelas. Household access to potable water, sanitation and electricity is significantly higher than 90%. But there are still significant challenges facing residents of irregular settlements, including serious environmental risk on marginal land that includes steep hillslopes.

While many Brazilian cities are among the most violent in the world, São Paulo has bucked the trend. Murder rates in the city have declined by nearly two-thirds, and in 2015 were only 11.5 per 100 000. This was significantly lower than even the national rate of 25.2.

However, other problems have emerged. São Paulo faced a major water crisis in 2014 – which was partly to do with a nationwide drought, but also to do with water-management problems linked to irregular land development and deforestation on the urban edge, causing the destruction of wet- lands as well as sewage pollution. The water crisis also caused power shortages in the city, as most electricity in Brazil is hydro-produced. Dengue fever has long been a concern in São Paulo State, but the Zika virus has emerged as an additional threat; although it is less prevalent there than along the more humid coastline.