If Foreign Policy’s recent 5-page article titled ‘Beyond City Limits‘ contains any indicators of what is to come, the Brazil of the future will be made of just two supercities: São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro. If the increase in urban migration continues (currently 50% of the world’s population lives in cities), and all signs say it will, both São Paulo city and the city of Rio de Janeiro may just become a single administrative entity or, in the least, the peripheries of each will at one point run into each other. The Southeast may become the region of the future while all other Brazilian geographical regions will support it. With the up and coming bullet-train connecting the future supercities, there will be those who live in Rio but work in São Paulo, or vice versa. Due to a combination of the green movement and traffic congestion, São Paulo’s license plate lottery will occur with less frequency and cars may just go away all together. Public transportation via super subways will get Caristanos (Cariocas + Paulistanos) where they need to be while rural areas will begin to fall under a UN Agenda 21-type program, meaning these areas will be federally protected and no one will be able to live anywhere but in the cities.
With the urban population in Brazil last counted at 81% back in the 2000 census, the supercity notion may be the Brazil of the future. What do you think?
Eyes On Brazil 