South America's Biggest City and the Other Side of The Same Coin
São Paulo City is home to several of the tallest buildings in Brazil, including the Mirante do Vale, Edifício Itália, Banespa, North Tower and many others. The city has cultural, economic and political influence both nationally and internationally. People from the city are known as paulistanos, while paulistas designates anyone from the state, including the paulistanos. Although São Paulo City is a cosmopolitan, melting pot city, home to large international communities (Arab, Italian, Japanese etc.), favelas are the other side of the same coin. There are shantytowns or slums known as favela in Brazil within urban areas. It says that the first favelas appeared in the late 19th century and were built by soldiers who had nowhere to live. Some of the first settlements were called African neighborhoods (bairros africanos). They were the places where former slaves with no land ownership and no options for work lived. Over the years, many former black slaves moved in. Even before the f...