Some random notes from Brazil


Just arrived in São Paulo ...

I am here to attend a Summer School on Methods in Political Science and International Relations. But no worries, I am not gonna bore you with dummy variables and heteroscedasticity diagnostics.

It is my first time South of Sarasota, Florida, in the Americas. So I was really excited to come here. I tried not to have too many expectations. But that's always tricky. And I obviously had some kind of image in my head of what I thought Brazil and specifically São Paulo would be like. Brazil is one of the most important emerging economies and THE commercial capital in the Southern hemisphere of the Americas. Brazil is known for tremendous inequalities between rich and poor. And, of course, it is a football champion (Brazilians refuse to call it soccer).

So far, São Paulo is not at all like the city I expected ...

It's a very modern, dynamic and vibrant city - but without the hectic and stress that I know from North American or European metropolises. The first day I went to the Universidate de São Paulo (here just affectionately called USP pronouncing an "I" after the "P"), I was pleasantly surprised by the fact that nobody ran down the elevators to catch the subway just about to leave the track. There are crowds and crowds of people in the subway, but there is no stress in the air. It's only a minority of people, which are probably foreigners. But since it is vacation time right now, some Brazilians have told me that this is gonna change after the Carnival.

The neighborhoods I have visited so far are very rich and expensive. They all seem very safe. I am staying right next to the subway station Paraiso on the South end of the famous Paulista Avenue. The police presence is as comforting as it is disturbing. But I have not walked through any poor neighborhoods. Most of the "favelas" are far from the city center. The Brazilians I have talked to told me that there is a stronger separation between rich and poor neighborhoods in São Paulo than in any other Brazilian city. Currently, there is a big problem with people being paid for setting fires in some of these "favelas". Certain people hope to benefit from this horror to buy the land to expand the city even more and make more money.

Prices are unexpectedly high. A subway ride costs 3 BRL (roughly 1.70 USD). Most of the cafeteria lunch platters at USP go for around 10 BRL (roughly 5.8 USD). Like many big cities in emerging economies, the prices have skyrocked. I am thinking here for example of Moscow. A Russian friend from the summer school just told me that it was cheaper for her to book a flight to Berlin and go shopping for Christmas presents in Germany than to stay in her home country and shop in Moscow.

São Paulo is a huge metropolis. The heart of the city counts 11 million people, the suburbs an additional 7 million people. That corresponds to about 22% of the entire German population. The streets, subways and buses are tremendously crowded. Approximately, almost 4 million people ride the subway in São Paulo every day. The first day it took me almost 3 hours (instead of 1 hour) to get home after school (Welcome to São Paulo). Traffic is one of the top themes among Paulistanos. In São Paulo, you live near where you work to avoid the traffic. At first, it was quite surprising to me that every public transportation bus counts two people working in it - a conductor and an operator. The driver is only responsible for driving, while the operator sits in the middle of the bus and controls all the tickets. Smart and safe. That would be a great suggestion for Québec, where drivers have to cope with crazy weather conditions during the winters. I was surprised to hear that quite a lot of Brazilian students own a car to drive to University. In São Paulo, there is, on average, one car for every two inhabitants. In order to try to reduce the number of cars driving through the city, the government has imposed a law that stipulates that every car can only be used 6 days a week. But the system is flawed since people just exchange cars with their friends and families.

The University campus is in the South West of the city. I have never seen such a huge campus in my whole life. Somebody told me that 55% of all the research in Brazil is produced at USP. And you can feel the thirst for quality education.