Claudio Bernardes

Claudio Bernardes 

How many different São Paulo’s are there? I think if you want to answer, what makes São Paulo, São Paulo, one of the things that makes São Paulo, São Paulo is the people who live here and why they live here. So maybe we could talk about who lives in São Paulo and why they live here.

Well, who lives in São Paulo? São Paulo has a very heterogenic population. Most of people are white people, but we have 43%, between Black and Brown people. The Brown population is growing. When we talk about Black people in general, I would say that among Black people, maybe we have 20% of Black people and 80% of Brown people, but we have Asian people, not very much, about 2%, and Indians, that is very small, less than 1%. What happens here that the population has grown a lot in the last years. I’ll tell you a number that is very interesting. From 1873 to 2010, New York grew in population seven times. You have an idea how much São Paulo grew at the same time, 360 times. So, New York, seven, São Paulo, 360. So, it was an amazing growth. Besides, in the last 50 years, the population double.

There is something that makes people live in São Paulo as well, that is the economic strength. It comes together with opportunities for jobs because of the strong economy. Sometimes people don’t realize how strong is the economy of São Paulo city. If São Paulo, the metropolitan region of São Paulo was in Europe, it would be the its second economy. First would be the metropolitan area of Paris, and second would be Madrid. However, as the economy of the metropolitan region of São Paulo is greater than Madrid, it would be the second. Obviously, the metropolitan region of London  is a little bigger than Paris, Anyway, São Paulo and São Paulo metropolitan area are very strong economically. So that’s something that I think makes people live here.

There’s something that makes São Paulo what São Paulo is, that is the urban development model of the city. São Paulo is a city that has 1,500 square kilometres, and about 900 square kilometres are urbanised area. The rest is Preservation Areas. So, in this urbanised area, we have what we call an Expanded Centre. In this Expanded Centre, is where most of the urban infrastructure is. I would say that 90% of the urban infrastructure is inside that Expanded Centre. This Expanded Centre is something about 300 square kilometres, about one-third of the urbanised area. There is a very interesting phenomenon that is linked to the regulation of urban development, and that caused some distortion in the evolution of the city. If you take 1980 for base, we had in São Paulo a population of eight and a half million people at that time, and from those eight and a half million people, three million lived in this Expanded Centre, where we have 90% of all infrastructure. Just three million. The rest lived in the peripheric areas. When we come to 2020, 40 years later, the population grew from eight and a half million to 11, almost to 12 million, 11.8 million, almost 12 million. It means that the population grew almost 40%. What was to be expected is that in the Expanded Centre, where we have most of the infrastructure, the population would grow similarly to the percentage of the whole population growth. So, from three million, we would have to go to four and a half million more or less. But what happened is that 40 years later, the population, instead of 3 million, went to 2.8 million. So, we should have there in 2020 about 1.5 million more people than we had. It means that the population was expelled to the peripheric areas of the city, where we don’t have most of the infrastructure.

So, what happens in that Expanded Centre? In 1980 we had a density of about 10,700 people per square kilometre in the Expanded Centre, and 10.2 thousand in the peripheric areas, so the density was more or less the same in those areas. But 40 years later, what happens then? Besides the population diminishing, the density diminished a lot. So, we went from, 10.7 thousand people per square kilometre, to 7.7 in the expanded centre, a reduction of 30% in density. In the peripheric areas of the city where we had 10.2 thousand people per square kilometre, went to 14 thousand. So, it grew about 40%, therefore we had an increase in population and in density in the peripheric areas, where we don’t have much of the infrastructure. People travel every day to the Expanded Centre for work. So, they have to travel a lot. Maybe the commuting time average is about three hours. They have in the peripheric areas around 10% of all the health facilities, culture equipment’s and even jobs of the whole city, so they have to come to the Expanded Centre. That makes São Paulo different because there’s a big social exclusion as a result of the urban development regulation. They tried to fix it changing the regulation. For the last four or five years we are getting good results because of this modification, and maybe we will be able to avoid that this process keeps going on wrongly, and maybe we will have this problem fixed.

There is a study showing that we will need about 700,000 new housing units in São Paulo, in the next 10 years, maybe in eight, or nine years. Therefore, we are struggling so that from those 700,000 units, maybe at least 60% we can put them inside those Expanded Area where we have most of the infrastructure. The sad thing is that we’re not able to bring all those people to the Expanded Centre now, because we have lots of people outside. And it is said that we expelled the poor people to the periphery areas, that’s not true, because just 26% of the middle-class, and the High class live in the expanded area, so 74% of all the middle-class people is living in the peripheric areas. We might not have enough money to put the same infrastructure we have in the expanded area in the peripheric areas. So, the first thing to do, is to avoid this process to go on as it was going for some years, and after that, try to fix the peripheral areas, giving them the infrastructure that we have in the expanded area. So, there’s something about who lives here, how they live, and that, in a way, makes São Paulo what São Paulo is.

What role have key geological and geographical features played in the city’s evolution? In this point, I would say that in São Paulo, we have two main rivers that cross the city, well, when I say main rivers, I mean rivers that are a little bit wider than 100 metres. This is a kind of river that really makes trouble to the development of the city because crossing those rivers is not so easy, so you have to have lots of bridges and ways to transpose it. So, this is something that made a difference in the evolution of the city. And as we have the two main rivers and big rivers crossing the city, what we also have is alluvial plains. You know what it is? I think the name is alluvial plains along the rivers. We have alluvial plains where the soil is very compressible, and it makes difference when we’re talking about development. But at the same time, there is a train line that was developed along those flood plains, what became important for mobility.  Anyway, those alluvial plains caused problems, geological problems and geotechnical problems, but actually those are the places where the city developed most, and the richest places are there. That might be something like the development along the Thames.  I think that situation is something that had key role in the development of the city.

When we talk about topography, the influence was not very much important. We have very flat areas, and we have some hill areas. Those hill areas, some of them were very well-developed in the past, so I don’t think that characteristic helped much or hindered much the development of the city. So, I don’t think there is something more to talk about geological, geographical features in the city’s evolution.

When we talk about the physical infrastructure or architectural features that shape the city, one thing that’s important, is that we don’t have uniformity architecturally speaking. We don’t have buildings that’s very similar to each other. They are very different, I would say. I wouldn’t compare to New York, but our architecture is something that is not uniform.  I think that what would shape the character of the city, is that the city was built with a focus on car use, therefor we have a huge structural road system, that, with time, became insufficient. In São Paulo, we have something like 20,000 kilometres of roads, and we have very long roads. We have roads with 30 kilometres of extension. As a matter of fact, the road system was the base of the city growth, and it showed to be insufficient and inefficient also. I would say that 20 to 30 years ago, people understood that it was absolutely necessary to invest in mass transportation, and we are very much back in terms of underground sub way lines. We have today about 100 kilometres of underground lines, but we should have at least 450 kilometres. Although we are working on it, we are yet very far from what would be considered an efficient mobility.

In this context, what would be the other way to deal with this problem, if we don’t have an efficient transportation system? The other way would be trying to deal with land use, because there are two ways to solve this problem, either you have very efficient transportation system, or you have a way that people don’t have to move so much. So, if you bring daily activities closer to homes, people don’t have to move a lot, and that reduces the need for transportation. We have been dealing with land use models, trying to avoid that people have to move a lot. See, we don’t have the means to solve this transportation system problem very quickly. Therefore, what we have been doing so far, is trying to invest in transportation system but at the same time work on land use models, in a way that we can make people do not move a lot to carry out the daily main activities, working, shopping, schools, and things like that.

Well, what else can I say about this? The architecture of the city is marked by a variety of styles, and they reflect, actually, the history of the city, from the colonial era to the present day. But when we’re talking about the history of the city, there is something that also doesn’t help a lot, that is the historic preservation of buildings. Our historic preservation laws are not adequate, neither to preserve, neither to develop the city, because they tend to freeze the properties that have to be preserved. Not only the properties, but also what is around the property. So, when you freeze the property and what is around the property, you end up not helping the property to be preserved, on the contrary. So that’s something that marks a lot São Paulo because we have lots of areas that are degraded because they tried to preserved it. I think this is a feature that is really important in the development of São Paulo process.

Caitlin Morrissey 

Claudio, before we move onto the question about São Paulo’s role because it’s a slightly different conversation there. Can I just ask a couple of follow-ups based on what you’ve just said? The first was to ask you about this idea that São Paulo is a place for opportunity, and I just wanted to understand from you a little bit more about the promise of São Paulo. What is the opportunity that the city promises to people who move to it?

Claudio Bernardes 

I wouldn’t say mainly jobs. There are lots of job opportunities, but entrepreneurship is very well come here in São Paulo. So, if you want to produce something, sell something, either goods or services, São Paulo is the place for you to do that. I don’t want to say it’s very easy because it’s not very easy to start a business and deal with it, but if we’re talking about, let´s say Latin America and Brazil, here’s the place where you can do it very easily.

Caitlin Morrissey 

Do you know where that sort of entrepreneurial spirit has come from through its history?

Claudio Bernardes 

I think that when you ask why São Paulo grew so much in a very short time, there are two main reasons. The first one was because of coffee. I think in the 1800s coffee became something that was very important. And many, many of the coffee producers came to live in São Paulo, so the money start flowing into the city. There’s another interesting thing about the history of the city that made the industry start growing here, very fast. São Paulo, I think like London, and every place, had the public lighting by fire, not electricity. People needed to fire the lamps. I don’t know how they called it at the time, but there was a Canadian company here, and they were responsible for lighting all the lamps with fire. We have here in São Paulo one of those big rivers called Rio Pinheiros, and it goes to the sea. It goes to the sea, but there is a difference in altitude about 700 metres to get there, and they used that difference to produce energy. So, they produced energy, first for lighting the streets, but they produced so much energy that they could not just lighten the streets, but also produce energy to power a huge industrial plant here in São Paulo. So, the industries start coming here to produce because there was lots of energy, and people from the rest of Brazil, start coming to São Paulo because they thought there would be opportunities as a result of the industries coming here, and that made São Paulo grow a lot. The opportunities started appearing because the economy started growing. I think that was the fact.

Caitlin Morrissey 

Yes, that makes so much sense. And just in terms of this enormous scale of growth that you’ve been painting through everything that you’ve said so far, what over that massive period of expansion has sort of stayed the same about São Paulo? So, you said there’s sort of an entrepreneurial spirit that is still present in the city today, and it still attracts people, and people still find this a great place to create new ventures and launch them. Is there any sort of other big strands of the character of the city that have remained despite all of this enormous change that the city has experienced and witnessed?

Claudio Bernardes 

I would say something about people who live here. We had lots of immigrants at that time, people coming from many places around the world, and mainly after the First World War. It was about, I think 1950 or something like that., and people who came here, of course besides Portuguese, were mainly Italian, Japanese, Germany and Lebanese, they came here with a very, very strong wish of getting well and they worked a lot. People to compete with them had to work more than that. So, there started to be a competition in the city for who works more and earns more money. That really was because of the people who emigrated from Europe after the First World War. After the Second World War, the same happened

Caitlin Morrissey 

And was that period of time where you start to see lots of architectural diversity because of all of these different global influences coming into the city?

Claudio Bernardes 

Maybe at the beginning, yes, we had influences from many places. So, the architecture had influences from many places. But afterwards, I think the Brazilian architects started to have their own view about architecture, and what happens is that they think a lot different from each other. They don’t have the same way of looking at architecture as far as the plastic of the building is concerned. Today we produce here in São Paulo, about 80,000 residential units per year, more or less. It means that, if you take the 80,000, and let’s make a calculation here, if you put about, I don’t know, 100 units per building, we would be constructing around 800 buildings a year in São Paulo city, and they are in terms of architecture, different from each other. That differences   make our architectural diversity.

Caitlin Morrissey 

Thank you, Claudio. What is the role that São Paulo plays in Brazil and in the region more broadly? And what is distinctive about São Paulo?

Claudio Bernardes 

So, what role does São Paulo play in the nation and the region?  I think, as we talked, São Paulo is the country’s main economic and financial centre. No doubt about that. São Paulo has the greatest economic potential in the country and have, for example, the largest stock exchange in Latin America.  São Paulo is a very big economic centre in Brazil and in Latin America, not just South America. We have in São Paulo the largest concentration of international companies in the country. So, about 65% of all foreign companies based in Brazil are in São Paulo. Just São Paulo, holds about 30% of the national commercial business in the country, just the City of São Paulo. And that’s interesting, because of course the biggest   budget in Brazil is the Brazil’s budget, the budget of the country. The second largest budget in Brazil is the budget of the State of São Paulo. We have 24 states. The State of São Paulo has the largest budget, and the City of São Paulo is the third largest budget in Brazil, ahead of all the other states. So, it’s very big. São Paulo in terms of the economy, is very representative.

In terms of infrastructure also as a result of being so strong economically. In São Paulo we have all the most modern highways, the main airports, ports, the largest container terminal in Latin America, the best transportation network, waterways, pipelines, etc. So , the infrastructure we have in São Paulo is the best in the State of São Paulo. Everything starts from São Paulo city.

In terms of culture, it is very important, not just in Brazil, in the nation, but in South America. I think it’s the city that holds the most important international events of global importance in South America, they are all in São Paulo, that is considered the most influential city in Latin America, actually. There’s another important thing we have in São Paulo that I like a lot, and if you come to São Paulo, I hope you do it very briefly, you could enjoy it, our gastronomy. We are very good at that. There is a traditional annual ranking of the world best cities. They rank the 100 best tourist destinations in the world. São Paulo, as a whole, is ranked 33rd place in the general rank as far as tourist destination is concerned. But it’s the third city in best restaurants. Ahead of London and New York. The first one is Tokyo, the second is Seoul in Korea, and the third is São Paulo. So, when you come here, you’ll have lots of alternatives in terms of gastronomy. That is something that’s very important.

Caitlin Morrissey 

That’s a really interesting point to make, Claudio. Can you sort of describe São Paulo’s gastronomic landscape for listeners who may not be familiar with the food that is on offer in the city?

Claudio Bernardes 

Well, the restaurants that prepare Brazilian food, typical Brazilian food, are not the majority. The majority prepares international food, we have Japanese, Lebanese, Mexican, Italian, as we have everywhere in the world. But I think the important thing here that we have a lot of restaurants and a lot of good restaurants everywhere in the city, even in the peripheric area of the city where we don’t have lots of infrastructure, but we have very good restaurants. We are talking about an almost 24 hours gastronomy in the city, different from some cities where after 10:00pm most of restaurants are closed. Here,  good restaurants you can go near  midnight and you’ll be served normally, something like that.

Caitlin Morrissey 

That is my kind of city. And to continue on this idea about São Paulo in relation to inventions, discoveries, cultural creativity.

Claudio Bernardes 

I didn’t find anything relevant to tell you about that. I don’t know  something that was really   important to say to you about discovery, inventions, innovations.

Caitlin Morrissey 

It’s interesting to hear you say that having perhaps there’s something more to say about São Paulo being an entrepreneurial city because not that the two are the same, obviously, it’s not the same question, but there seems to be a connection there. But São Paulo, the scale of the city, do you find that it’s a place where inventions or discoveries from elsewhere find a platform because the people who are being broadcast or shown discoveries and invention, there’s such a huge market for it? Is there a different way of understanding discoveries and inventions, in terms of São Paulo, that perhaps aren’t just discoveries made there?

Claudio Bernardes 

I think we are good in using inventions, not making them. Well, what happens here I think-- until, let’s say, 30 years ago, I don’t know, more or less, we did not incentivise research a lot, I think. It’s a Brazilian way of seeing things. We prefer to take what people invented or developed outside of Brazil and develop it here. But I think in the last 30 years, they started investing in research. And there are some things that are happening, but not in São Paulo city, actually, some cities in the State of São Paulo, you have very important centres or research centres outside of São Paulo. But in São Paulo city, I don’t think we had so much.. There might be many things that were invented here or discovered here, but I really don´t know about that  

Caitlin Morrissey 

Yes, I mean, that’s a finding in itself. Who would you describe as being São Paulo’s most influential leaders, at any point in time, and also from any kind of realm, who stands out to you as being a sort of key figure in shaping the character of the city?

Claudio Bernardes 

Leaders you talk about the next question, leaders. When you say leaders, you were saying the position or the person?

Caitlin Morrissey 

It’s up to your interpretation.

Claudio Bernardes 

Because you see, the Mayor of the city is one of the most influential leaders here in the city. But the person of the Mayor maybe is not so influential, but the position sure is. What leaders are influential here in São Paulo? We have the Mayor that has  great  influence, and we have the Governor of the State based in the city. So the Governor of the State is a very much influential leader in the city as well, because lots of things happens here in São Paulo. As I say, those, I think, are the two most influential leaders, but the entrepreneurial associations are very much influential also in the city. So, we have lots of them in each field. In my case, real estate, the associations have lots of influence in everything that happens in the city. We are always talking to the Mayor and deputies and everybody who builds the regulations to understand what’s happening here. So, I think those are the three aspects that are most influential in the city.

Caitlin Morrissey 

And this question, it also extends beyond sort of formal power in the city. I suppose to perhaps ask you about cultural leaders or sporting leaders, or people you have put the city on the map in a way?

Claudio Bernardes 

Well, nowadays, with the internet, lots of leaders appear. So, we have those influential persons. I don’t know if you have that in England as well. Those people that work with internet and influence people. They are influencers. I don’t know if you have this in London, but here we have. For example we´ll have elections for Mayor, in a week in São Paulo, and we have the traditional candidates, those of them who were expected to be the two most voted. Suddenly, it appears an internet influencer apparently unknown from most people, and he has one-third of the votes in the electoral pool. So, there might be leaders that we don’t know, but they will be influencing everything. This guy, for example, is influencing a lot the election.  I think internet is something that really works a lot here in São Paulo city, and it’s making difference. When you talk about sporting and culture leaders, those were really strong influencers, but they influenced more in the past. Nowadays, not so much. That’s what I feel.

Caitlin Morrissey 

And then coming on to this question about myths that unite people in the city, so those myths that are captured in songs or stories or poems about São Paulo, and what is the essence of the myths about the city?

Claudio Bernardes 

Well, São Paulo is a very unique city. I think there are some stories about São Paulo, or myths that are not the same, for example, when I told you about immigration, this is a very strong fact here. Today, we have the largest number of Japanese, Lebanese and Italians outside their countries of origin. So, there are lots of Japanese in Japan, but the second place with more Japanese is São Paulo, not Brazil. In São Paulo the Lebanese is also very important. If you count the Lebanese and the descendant Lebanese, they are bigger than the actual people that live in Lebanon. The President of Lebanon came here, and at that time, we had a President here called Michel Temer, whose origin is from Lebanon. So, the president of Lebanon said to him, ‘You are more President of Lebanon than I am, because you have more Lebanese living here than in Lebanon’. So that is something that really makes different São Paulo. It is so strong that people here in São Paulo uses to eat one million pizzas a day. One million pizzas a day! This comes from the Italian culture, but one million is a lot. Some other things that happen in São Paulo are relevant. For example, we have the largest helicopter fleet in the world, the largest, more than London or New York.  I don’t know why, but I think it is because of the traffic and the big difference in richness, wellness. We have lots of rich people, but also lots of very poor people. When I say rich, it is very rich, so that people can move around with helicopters because traffic is very bad. Those are some typical things from  São Paulo.

Caitlin Morrissey 

And there’s a related question, do you find São Paulo to be a very well-understood city, or do you ever encounter misconceptions that have just sort of misinterpreted the city? This can be sort of nationally or even internationally.

Claudio Bernardes 

I think there are misconceptions. I think there are some misconceptions. What I see here in my daily activities is a conception   that São Paulo is a very dense city. When you look, if you come to São Paulo and you go to a high building at the highest place in São Paulo, and I did it with some people that came from New York, and you go around 360 degrees, you just see buildings, buildings, buildings. And it’s very  impressive to see that. So,  people have the impression that São Paulo is a very dense city, but actually, it’s not. If  you take the Expanded Centre, as I told you, density is something about 10,000 inhabitants per square kilometre. 10,000 is nothing compared to Manhattan, for example, or Paris. Manhattan is 27,000 and Paris 22,000. I don’t know what is London density , but it might be something about 14,000, I don’t know. Something like that. So, people say that São Paulo is very dense, but it’s not. This is a misconception that I see every day.

Another thing is that there is no quality of life in São Paulo. People keep saying it. People who live here say they have no quality of life, that life here is not very good, but it really depends on where you are. So that’s true, but at the same time is not so true. If you divide quality of life in some degrees, you would have sky high quality of life, let’s say what you have in Sweden, or a very high-quality life, maybe in Spain, or a high-quality life in Czech Republic, let’s say. So, in Sao Paulo, from high to sky high, we have this kind of quality of life similar to those countries in the Expanded Centre. In the periphery, we have a very low quality of life, actually. So, São Paulo doesn’t have quality of life depending on where you are. But let’s say, in one-third of the city will have a very good quality of life, in general terms, but we have problems like security, violence and things like this, that also depends on where you are. You have to know where not to go. If you know where not to go, maybe you’ll be all right, but otherwise you’ll be in trouble. Although violence is increasing in the expanded centre as well.                

What else can I say? Oh, there’s another thing that people say, and this is that São Paulo is a vertical city because of so many buildings. There’s lots of buildings here actually. People complain about buildings all the time. I don’t know, in London, but I think in London there were the NIMBYs movement, not in my backyard, a movement that said no to new buildings. Here we have the same thing. People keep complaining that there are lots and lots of buildings in São Paulo. But what happens is that actually, we don’t have so many buildings. I would say that maybe, the vertical city or the vertical São Paulo is about 20% of the city. The rest are houses, horizontal houses or two-storey houses. However, it is changing a little bit. In 2000, for example, we might have 1.2 million horizontal houses. When I say horizontal is one or two storey houses. 20 years later, it came from 1.2 to 1.3 million. Not a great increase, but when we are talking about apartments in high-rise buildings, we went from about 800,000 units in 2.000 to 1,5 million in 2020. It was a growth of more than 80%. It means that we increased density, actually. We increased density and we put more people living where we have good infrastructure, that’s a good thing, although people complain about that because there are more people living around them.  So, changes are in its way and something is happening.

I think that’s it. São Paulo also was considered the city of drizzle. We had lots of drizzle, but we don’t have it any longer. Maybe like the fog London, maybe the same situation. There are a lot of songs about that.

Caitlin Morrissey 

So, what you’re saying is that, is São Paulo witnessing some changes through climate change?

Claudio Bernardes 

Yeah, because of climate change. And there are lots and lots of songs about the drizzle in São Paulo and telling what happened here, but the songs make no sense today because of the climatic change.

Caitlin Morrissey 

Our penultimate questions are to ask you about the notable shocks in São Paulo’s history, and to really ask you, what can we learn about the way that the city has responded to those shocks? So, are there any that come to mind?

Claudio Bernardes 

Well, here there are bad things and good things, actually, I think, like everywhere. But I think the shocks we’ve been having here, the most important as far as climate change is concerned, is about pollution. We see that people are struggling to avoid it in many ways, and maybe traffic is the most important action. There are lots of people who are working on it. Violence is something that’s also important and not so easy to solve because organised crime is taking over, here and in many places. People are really trying to structure a very big shock as far security is concerned. It’s not so easy, but it’s something they will have to do because organized crime takes over lots of activities, mainly drugs and betting activities. They are all over the world. To worsen the situation now organized crime is going over gas stations and lots of, let’s say, illicit activities, but with money that’s not so licit.

Caitlin Morrissey 

Thank you. And the final question to ask you Claudio is, what does the future hold for the city, and how will its DNA shape that future as you see it?

Claudio Bernardes 

How I see the future of the city? Well, I was born here, and I lived here for the last 70 years, so I’ve seen a lot, good things and bad things, but I think we are going to be better in, let’s say, 20 years or less. In terms of what? In terms of urban development model, in terms of quality of life, in terms of education and health, that I think are important things that we are looking for. So, I think we will be better. My grandson will be getting a better city than I had, I hope.

Caitlin Morrissey 

And is there anything else that you would like to say about the DNA of São Paulo, that the questions that we prepared did prompt you to say? Is there anything else that you would like to add?

Claudio Bernardes 

I’m sure we’re missing lots of points here about São Paulo because I’m not able to cover everything. But I think, you know, we talked about is the structure of our DNA, maybe.

Caitlin Morrissey 

Thank you so much, Claudio.