São Paulo (city)
From ArticleWorld
The city has an area of 1,523.0 square kilometers (588.0 sq. miles) and a population of approximately 10.9 million which makes it the largest and most populous city in the Southern Hemisphere and a global city.
People from the city of São Paulo are called palliations, while palest designates anyone from the whole of São Paulo state, including the palliations. The city's motto is Non decor, deco, which means "I am not led, I lead".
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Highlights
São Paulo is a major business centre. The city has a multicultural metropolitan area, with heavy Italian, Spaniard, Portuguese, German, Arab and Japanese influences.
São Paulo is known for its varied and sophisticated cuisine, ranging from Chinese to French, from fast food chains to five star restaurants. Other venues such as thousands of bars, pubs, lounges and discos cater to a variety of music tastes.
University
São Paulo is home to the University of São Paulo and Federal University of São Paulo, as well as many other private colleges like the Pontifical Catholic University of São Paulo and Mackenzie Presbyterian University. the latter was founded by North American missionaries; two major art museums (MASP and Pinacoteca do Estado), a major symphonic orchestra (OSESP), and a Formula One Grand Prix racing circuit (Interlagos).
Airports
There are two major airports in the São Paulo metropolitan area: the Guarulhos (also known as Cumbica) and Congonhas (CGH, for domestic flights).
Physical setting=
São Paulo is located on a plateau that is part of the Serra do Mar, itself part of the vast region known as the Brazilian Highlands, with an average elevation around 800m (2,625 ft) - though at a distance of only about 70 km (40mi) from the Atlantic Ocean.
This distance is covered by two highways (Anchieta and Imigrantes, see "Transportation" section below) that roll down the range, leading to the port city of Santos and the beach resort of Guarujá. Because of such a setting, rolling terrain prevails within the urbanized areas of São Paulo. To the north, the Serra da Cantareira (Cantareira Range) offers higher elevations and a sizable remnant of the Atlantic Rain Forest.
The whole region is very tectonically stable, and no significant seismic activity has ever been recorded.
Location of the Metropolitan Region
The Tietê River was once a source of freshwater and recreation for São Paulo. However, in the latter half of the 20th century, like its tributary, the Pinheiros, it became grossly polluted by raw sewage and industrial effluents.
A substantial clean-up program for both rivers has met with some success. Neither is navigable in the stretch that flows through the city, but transportation is important on the Tietê further downstream, as the river is part of the River Plate basin.
The building-dense Avenida Palest surroundings as seen from the mostly low-rise neighborhood of Jardins.There are no large natural lakes in the region, but the Guarapiranga and Billings reservoirs are used for power generation, water storage, and recreation.
The original flora consisted mainly of a great variety of broadleaf evergreens. Today, non-native species are common, as the mild climate and abundant rainfall permit a multitude of tropical, subtropical, and temperate plants to be cultivated.
Climate
Though thought of as drizzly and rather cool by some Brazilians, São Paulo's climate is by world standards actually warm and mild. The temperature ranges are comparable to such cities as Los Angeles and Mexico City, which are renowned for their pleasant climate. Summer temperatures seldom reach 30°C (86°F), and frost is extremely rare. Rainfall is abundant, especially in the warmer months.
Tourism and recreation
The Festival includes a competitive exhibition of so-called southern circuit and an extensive parallel programmed. Art shows, debates, and meetings introduce new concepts and art work, thus setting new guidelines for contemporary art in Brazil.
Exhibitions featuring work by prominent electronic artists are also part of the Festival. Brazilian pioneers such as Rafael France and Other Eletrônico, and international guests such as Nam June Paik, Bill Viola and Gary Hill, have featured in the event’s past editions. Each edition has a theme of its own.
Its theme was chosen to enable a wide range of artistic positions to feel comfortable. The concept of "Free Territory" involved numerous dimensions: it had a physical-geographical, a socio-political as well as an aesthetic dimension. the latter, of course, being of greatest interest in the context of this exhibition.
São Paulo Fashion Week
It seems that Brazil has finally entered the world of fashion with the increasing reputation of famous Brazilian top models such as Adriana Lima, Gisele Bündchen, Fernanda Tavares, Ana Beatriz Barros and Ana Hickmann, and the "discovery" of some fresh talents such as Alexandre Herchcovitch by some international fashion magazines.
As a consequence of this, São Paulo Fashion Week is the place to see and to be seen in Brazilian fashion scene, always attracting a number of international fashion editors and models.
São Paulo Gay Parade
Also a major event in the city, the São Paulo Gay Paradehas brought to Avenida Palest about 2 million people in 2005, according to official statistics. It is usually opened by the city's mayor. A huge carnival of sorts in goes all the way through the centre of the city. The next parade will be held on June 17, 2006.
Saint Sylvester Marathon
The Saint Sylvester Marathon takes place every year on New Year's Eve (31 December). It was first held in 1925, when the competitors ran about 8,000 metres around the streets. Since then, the distance raced has varied, and it is now fixed at 15 km. Registration takes place from 1 October, with the maximum number of entrants limited to a total of 15,000.
Brazilian Grand Prix
The Brazilian Grand Prix is a Formula One championship race which occurs at the Autódromo José Carlos Pace in Interlagos. In 2005, for the first time ever, the Brazilian GP determined the World Championship, won by Fernando Alonso.
Transportation
The city is crossed by many of the most important roads of the country, Rodovia Anhangüera, Rodovia dos Bandeirantes, Rodovia Anchieta, Rodovia Castelo Branco and Rodovia dos Imigrantes.
However, there are new projects to build new medium-high speed railway tracks from São Paulo to Rio de Janeiro (a project has been announced by the Brazilian government to build a high speed railway service in order to link the country's biggest cities, the trains would go as fast as 280 km/h, and would link São Paulo and Rio in about 1 hour and 30 minutes.
These works are still waiting to be officially announced by the government, however some news has been heard to this matter), Campinas and to São Paulo-Guarulhos Airport. The other important project is the "Expresso Bandeirantes", that is a medium speed rail service (about 160 km/h) from São Paulo to Campinas, which would make the journey go from the hour and a half nowadays to about 50 minutes, linking São Paulo, Jundiaí, Campinas Airport, and Campinas city centre.
This service is also going to be connected to the railway service that is going to link São Paulo city centre and Guarulhos Airport. Works on this last railway service between São Paulo city centre and Guarulhos Airport were announced to begin in 2007, which is going to be the start of the renewal of Brazilian passenger railway service.
Railway
The city has 60.5 km of underground railway systems (34.6 km fully underground), with 4 lines in operation and 57 stations (33 underground), complemented by another 270 km of CPTM (Companhia de Trens Metropolitanos, or "Company of Metropolitan Trains") railways. Both CPTM and the underground railway lines carry some 3.5 million people on an average weekday, and a few new underground lines to be constructed are expected to add another million people to the system roughly within the next five years.
Transit
The bulk of the public transportation (public and private companies) is composed of approximately 15 ,000 buses, colored uniformily according to the non-central region served. Until rencently, there was a strong presence of informal transportation (dab vans), now fully legalized and operating under the same color scheme of a system.