water ways redefining the power of São Paulo’s infrastructure
infrastructure | agua branca , são paulo by fernando de mello franco
flood control informal development sectors open space infrastructural systems piscinões
marta moreira milton braga
Out of the several infrastructures belonging to São Paulo, water and transportation systems have always flowed through the same routes. São Paulo was built in the late industrialisation boom at the end of the nineteenth century. Succes- sive migratory inflows supplied the city with a workforce, setting off a vicious cycle of population growth. Throughout the twentieth century, the metropolis went from 250 thou- sand to 18 million inhabitants, some- thing like constructing 35 Brasílias, on the same site, in just a hundred years. The city has been built by two contrasting forces: on one hand, selected investments in the mod- ernisation of São Paulo’s economic base; on the other, the individual initiatives of a population in search of shelter, generally constructed in a spontaneous, ‘informal’ manner at the fringes of the legal city. São Paulo can be interpreted through the logic of the construction that privileged its productive sectors at the expense of its informal sectors.
On the verge of summer, when pluviometric rates in São Paulo are at their highest, the chronic problem of flooding resumes. With the intense process of disorderly urbanisation, the soil has become excessively impermeable. The transformation and occupation of São Paulo Basin riverbanks and fluvial plains, which used to control water flows, just worsen the problem. The entire population is hit by the flooding. Underprivileged populations who live close to water flows in historically depreciated areas are directly affected in their own dwellings. The risk situation of these populations represents for every public administration a reason for concern, which might be either of lower or higher level, according to their social commitment. This issue has never been tackled in an
effective manner, and suffers with continual government changes and discontinuity. The population not affected in their own dwellings is affected by difficulties imposed by a lack of mobility when the main road system, situated on a tableland and strategically placed parallel to the water ways, floods. As water incapacitates traffic flow, the problem gains a metropolitan dimension, also reaching production sectors. As flooding is a factor of urban diseconomy, harming the efficient flow of people and goods, it belongs to the city administration plan and political agenda, to which successive governments have allocated funds, although never enough. In this investment, there is an opportunity for action, pinpointing needy areas throughout the metropolis.
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