03.5 S ÃO PA U LO
Brazil’s largest city is also its financial center. There is a stark contrast between the quality of life and economic well-being in the central city and the poverty of the peripheral informal settlements, as evidenced by an alarming difference in life expectancy of more than 20 years.144 The City has struggled to implement housing policies and programs that adequately address the need in these peripheral areas. We focus on São Paulo because of its housing crisis, as well as its large and active housing movements. Some of the most influential people advancing autogestão on a national level can be found here. This relatively singular focus should not be interpreted as our ignoring other parts of the country. Rather, our experience here provided us with a deeper understanding of self management that can be broadly applied.
BACKGROUND, HISTORY, AND ECONOMY São Paulo emerged as a major coffee hub in the late 1800s, a time when coffee was one of Brazil’s primary commodities. The city’s proximity to the large port in Santos and the presence of many national and international banks firmly situated it as an economic center. In the 20th century, changes in domestic policy related to the coffee trade and international markets led to an import substitution strategy. The policy changes positioned São Paulo to become a major manufacturing and financial center in Brazil. By the 1970s, manufacturing accounted for 40% of São Paulo’s economy. Countless migrants from Brazil’s rural northeast region and immigrants 4 8 • B A C K G R O U N D M AT E R I A L
from rural Europe and Japan moved to the city to access these manufacturing jobs.145 In the 21st century, São Paulo’s economy has become increasingly centered on the service sector. Multinational firms are attracted to the city’s robust science and technology ecosystem, as well as its large and accomplished universities. This shift toward a service-based economy has led to a decline in manufacturing in the São Paulo Metropolitan Region (SPMR) and a related increase in informal economic activity, as those who relied on São Paulo’s manufacturing jobs are forced to find employment elsewhere.146 The growth in the informal economy is reflected in development and population trends in the SPMR: for the past three decades, the population in the central core has decreased while the numbers in the periphery have rapidly grown.147 These peripheral settlements largely comprise lowincome populations, many of whom live in informal settlements (see Figure 03.4 and Figure 03.5).
CONTEMPORARY SÃO PAULO AT A GLANCE The Municipal Human Development Index (MHDI), which measures well-being based on income, health, and education is 0.805.148 As demonstrated in Figure 03.6, this score has been steadily increasing for the past three decades, indicating the growing well-being of São Paulo’s citizens as a whole. This increasing MHDI hides an important reality of São Paulo: the stark inequality between the wealthy,
