This past weekend, I made a voyage to this region's garbage mecca: New York City. As I walked the streets of Manhattan, I couldn't help but compare the streets-scapes, the movement, and the hustle and bustle to the last comparable big city that I was in: São Paulo, Brazil. On a normal day, walking to and from the São Paulo metro, I was shocked at how clean the streets were. A bag of trash here and there, waiting to be picked up, but the only constant stream of matter that littered the streets there was dirt. That is not to say, however, that there was no littering going on in the 5th largest city in the world. Instead of the litter ground into city streets, as I saw so frequently in NYC, São Paulo's litter was swept to the periphery: into the urban slums, or favelas. What does this say about the difference in social structure of these two cities?? Furthermore, what differences are there in urban value systems?
Photos:
Brazilian
Favela from: http://affordablehousinginstitute.org/blogs/us/2008/06/favelas-of-sao-paulo-part-1-cingapura.html
NYC Street Scape taken by myself on 2/26/2011
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