[speakeasy]

First off, let me say that I love Brazilian people, the music, the girls, the pretty language, the multitude of complexions and mixes and the dynamic culture that comes from being at the crossroad of humanity. The beaches and natural scenery can be great as well. I'm talking about the cities themselves. My first glance of Rio was by bus after a 24hr ride that took me from Iguacu Falls through Sao Paulo and on into the Rio. The countryside was green, mountainous and beautiful. But as we approached Rio, the route into the city took us through the north zone which makes up the majority of the area and is the part of Rio you never see in the post card shots. Favela, after favela. It was like riding through a giant slum for about a half an hour. I was starting to wonder if I'd made a mistake in coming to Rio. But after I got to Rio's zona sul, it began to look more like the exotic Rio that I'd seen endlessly on travel shows and in magazines.

Recently, Google has finally added all the major Brazilian cities to their street view allowing you to virtually explore different areas. One night I was having some fun reminiscing on the places I'd gone there and looking at some neighborhoods I'd walked around. I then began looking at other cities from all across Brazil at the street level. I then realized that most Brazilian cities pretty much look the same. They are pretty nondescript and kind of ugly.

Curitiba:


Belo Horizante:


Recife:


Sao Paulo


Manaus


Goiânia


Florianapolis


Porto Alegre


You can look at the skyline of almost any Brazilian city and cannot tell one from the other. Many of the smaller places have that same look of just a jumble of boring, featureless, cinderblock apartment towers. The only cities that seem visually standout to me are Salvador because of its well preserved Colonial architecture and Rio because of it's natural setting. I wonder why this is? I've been around the S. American countries and many of the cities have a certain colonial charm. Buenos Aires is packed full of amazing architecture with influences from Madrid and Paris, Santiago has its old world charms with the Plaza de Armas, Montevideo is like a smaller Buenos Aires with the same European flavor. Lima has one of the coolest colonial districts in Latin America. Quito, Ecuador is very interesting looking. In Brazilian cities you don't even see the usual center plaza like most south American and Iberian cities. I kinda wonder what happened. Brazil is just as old a country as anywhere else in Latin America, yet the architectural charm commom in many Latin American cities is almost non-existent in Brazil, with a few exceptions like Salvador and some smaller towns like Ouro Preto and Olinda.

In the U.S. the difference between our cities is vast. NYC looks nothing like San Francico. L.A. looks nothing like D.C. Chicago looks nothing like Miami. Boston looks nothing like Seattle. New Orleans looks nothing like Philly. You have a very wide range and each city is sort of iconic and easily recognizable in its own way. Brazilian cities stike me as almost featureless and indistinguishable from one another with the most bland archicture I've seen outside of the few exceptions I've mentioned.

Not hating on Brazil and I hope I don't piss any Brazilians off with this post, I like the place, but more for the people, nature and culture, not the cities themselves. I've heard that Sao Paulo tends to grow on people with time when they dig deeper, but everyone I've ever talked to has a negative reaction towards Sao Paulo at first experience. I'm sure any city can become more likable if you are engaged in the local scene for long enough.

--Edit---

Interesting discussion by expats living in Brazil that echos some of my sentiments:

http://www.gringoes.com/forum/forum_post...13854&PN=1

[Chapulin]

No

[Amsterdao!]

Don't underestimate the colombian cities....really ugly as well. Nothing to do besides daygame all day longggg..

[bojangles]

No.

Visit Pakistan or Afghanistan or Iraq or The Congo.

[Belgrano]

Quote:

The only cities that seem visually standout to me are Salvador because of its well preserved Colonial architecture and Rio because of it's natural setting.
(...)
Brazilian cities stike me as almost featureless and indistinguishable from one another with the most bland archicture I've seen outside of the few exceptions I've mentioned.

What about Brasilia?

[Belgrano]

[Excelsior]

It definitely gets far, far worse than Brazil (see: Lagos, Nigeria).

[Capitán Peligroso]

RIP Oscar Niemeyer, a man who made Brazilian cityscapes a lot better than they otherwise would have been.

[chochemonger1]

Let´s just put it this way about Brazilian cities in general: They are not that ugly, but they were not designed for love tourists who understand the importance of logistics.

[speakeasy]

Forgot to mention Brasilia. Interesting looking government buildings if you're into that Jetson's mid-century space age thing. Not my thing though but it's distinctive. And yeah I guess sorta interesting. I hear it's not exactly the most exciting place to visit.

Maybe I overstepped a bit saying ugliest cities in the world. Of course Nigeria is much worse. What I meant is that compared to its Spanish-speaking neighbors, it has done little to preserve any of the old world charm you associate with Latin America. Buenos Aires is the Paris of the Americas while Sao Paulo is the living definition of concrete jungle and urban blight..

Even Rio which is considered the most beautiful and iconic city is only beautiful in that narrow strip between the Atlantic and the Tijuca forest in the south zone. Venture out of there to the north zone where 90% of cariocas live and it looks post apocalyptic.

[chochemonger1]

(12-07-2012 02:05 PM)speakeasy Wrote:  

Forgot to mention Brasilia. Interesting looking government buildings if you're into that Jetson's mid-century space age thing. Not my thing though but it's distinctive. And yeah I guess sorta interesting. I hear it's not exactly the most exciting place to visit.

Maybe I overstepped a bit saying ugliest cities in the world. Of course Nigeria is much worse. What I meant is that compared to its Spanish-speaking neighbors, it has done little to preserve any of the old world charm you associate with Latin America. Buenos Aires is the Paris of the Americas while Sao Paulo is the living definition of concrete jungle and urban blight..

Even Rio which is considered the most beautiful and iconic city is only beautiful in that narrow strip between the Atlantic and the Tijuca forest in the south zone. Venture out of there to the north zone where 90% of cariocas live and it looks post apocalyptic.

You were mostly right speak easy. Compared to many cities in the Americas and especially Europe, most Brazilian cities are not pleasant ones to live in or to look at. Though African cities and some Asian ones are worse.

[Aliblahba]

(12-07-2012 07:09 AM)bojangles Wrote:  

No.

Visit Pakistan or Afghanistan or Iraq or The Congo.

Sooo, exactly how much time do you have in Iraq and Afghan?

[Technics]

Ali-B,

Sounds like you've spent quite some time in the ME.

Were you able to get any of the local girls?

(12-07-2012 02:58 PM)Aliblahba Wrote:  

(12-07-2012 07:09 AM)bojangles Wrote:  

No.

Visit Pakistan or Afghanistan or Iraq or The Congo.

Sooo, exactly how much time do you have in Iraq and Afghan?

[Aliblahba]

(12-07-2012 03:58 PM)Technics Wrote:  

Ali-B,

Sounds like you've spent quite some time in the ME.

Were you able to get any of the local girls?

(12-07-2012 02:58 PM)Aliblahba Wrote:  

(12-07-2012 07:09 AM)bojangles Wrote:  

No.

Visit Pakistan or Afghanistan or Iraq or The Congo.

Sooo, exactly how much time do you have in Iraq and Afghan?

Most of my time was on base, and never got my ME flag. Used to make some pretty crazy runs to Baghdad International, down Rt. Irish, for beer runs. That was back when it was still the wild wild west.

Some of the most beautiful women I've ever seen were tripping through that airport. Same as Kuwait, Dubai, and Qatar.

[MountainLion]

Not the ugliest. But certainly some of the most dangerous.

I think the weather in Brazil does them good. People usually have a bad perception of cities when they get there for the first time in winter. I thought Oslo looked like a half-abandoned Eastern European coal mining colony when I landed in October.

[DiogoFC]

Brazillian guy talking: yes, some of the ugliest. To be sure, the thumbnails you selected portray a better picture of the cities than the real thing. To my taste, for example, Florianópolis looks great in that picture. If you get to walk on the streets of any of these cities it's far worse (of course I'm not talking about the fancy neighboorhoods). I've done my first international trips few years ago and was overwhelmed by Buenos Aires, Barcelona, Paris and even second tier cities like Rosario or Santa Cruz de Tenerife. It's really a pleasure to walk by these places. I felt like "Well, this is what they mean by CITY".

The reason for that? Well, there must be a few reasons, but I'm positive about one. We lived a so called "brazillian miracle" in the early seventies, boasting GDP growth like 11%. This was before the oil shocks and there was abundant credit in the international markets. We received a lot of it, especially from Japan and Middle East. Brazil was a rural country like must be the case with Bolivia and India.[/align] This growth wave brought thousands of people from the countryside to work in industry and construction [as well as road building] all of a sudden. We're talking about peasants who never had any contact with civilization except for the church and the police. So, turns out braziilian big cities are little more than human lives piles with no shaddow of architecture, urban planing or the like.

And it gets worse, unfortunenately, when it comes to smaller towns. Please, if you like Brazil don't visit the countryside (except for some in the South and São Paulo) which is no different than we se in some footages of Africa and India. This is going to take away your hopes about Brazil's future.

[chochemonger1]

(12-08-2012 06:45 PM)DiogoFC Wrote:  

Brazillian guy talking: yes, some of the ugliest. To be sure, the thumbnails you selected portray a better picture of the cities than the real thing. To my taste, for example, Florianópolis looks great in that picture. If you get to walk on the streets of any of these cities it's far worse (of course I'm not talking about the fancy neighboorhoods). I've done my first international trips few years ago and was overwhelmed by Buenos Aires, Barcelona, Paris and even second tier cities like Rosario or Santa Cruz de Tenerife. It's really a pleasure to walk by these places. I felt like "Well, this is what they mean by CITY".

The reason for that? Well, there must be a few reasons, but I'm positive about one. We lived a so called "brazillian miracle" in the early seventies, boasting GDP growth like 11%. This was before the oil shocks and there was abundant credit in the international markets. We received a lot of it, especially from Japan and Middle East. Brazil was a rural country like must be the case with Bolivia and India.[/align] This growth wave brought thousands of people from the countryside to work in industry and construction [as well as road building] all of a sudden. We're talking about peasants who never had any contact with civilization except for the church and the police. So, turns out braziilian big cities are little more than human lives piles with no shaddow of architecture, urban planing or the like.

And it gets worse, unfortunenately, when it comes to smaller towns. Please, if you like Brazil don't visit the countryside (except for some in the South and São Paulo) which is no different than we se in some footages of Africa and India. This is going to take away your hopes about Brazil's future.

Diogo, you are an honest man.