In about 27 years, the city of São
Paulo may be a more humane city where most citizens will be able to live closer
to their work, have well-paying jobs and live at fifteen minute walk distance from
a small green area or a train station by public transportation. For this to
become reality, consistent work for over three or four administrations is
required to implement a long-term plan for changing the lives of paulistanos for the better.
For the past two years Profuturo coordinated a long-term strategic planning for the city, known as Plan SP2040.
This study, sponsored by the Municipality of São Paulo, involved more than 250
experts from city hall, business firms, universities and, also, consulted over 25
thousand citizens. Its outlined a strategic vision, projects and action programs
for the city that resulted in a document that presents both a popular view as a
technical vision. The reader must be wondering: how would this dream scenario
of São Paulo be?
The city we want will have more
housing within its central region, which today is quite well served by public
transportation and concentrates a large portion of the city’s employment
opportunities. At the same time, the city will be more decentralized, concentrating
itself around about 120 regional centers in city neighborhoods that offer
transportation, education, housing, services and jobs. It is hoped that every
citizen can live about fifteen minutes on foot from recreation areas and that
the daily commute to work and study does not exceed thirty minutes on average.
Thus, almost 80% of normal daily
activities can be carried out in these 120 "equivalent cities", allowing for
a strong reduction in daily commutes and mitigating social impacts from
pollution, stress and traffic accidents.
To accomplish its economic
potential, São Paulo should embrace its vocation as an international business
center. To excel among Latin American cities such as Rio de Janeiro, Buenos
Aires, Mexico City and even Miami, we need not only to rehabilitate its
infrastructure (transport and communication, especially) as well as train,
attract and retain human talent of an international standard. To form talented
citizens, universities and professional schools should interact more with the
productive sector and encourage entrepreneurship. To attract them, São Paulo should
be capable of providing support for their self-development along with that of the
companies established here. Finally, to retain talent, the city should be
receptive to different cultures and offer an attractive quality of life to
skilled and creative people.
To continue to thrive, increasing
its GDP without a significant population growth, Sao Paulo must attract economic
sectors which generate high added value and innovation. Some of these strategic
areas are: health and financial services, education, research and development,
infrastructure and urban retrofit, transportation, communication, energy and
environmental sustainability. At the same time, the trained manpower for these
sectors has to be constantly improved to sustain a decent standard of
competitiveness in a global city.
Attracting modern enterprises,
training manpower and innovating are required for Sao Paulo to strengthen its
role as a national center for logistics, trade and services, efficiently
supporting productive activities throughout Brazil. According to our projection
models, this trend will make our city reach in 2040 levels of per capita income
and human development index (HDI) similar to those of the cities of Mediterranean
Europe today.
During the next three decades São
Paulo is expected to maintain growth rate around 15% lower the average growth
of the Brazilian GDP, in line with the necessary reduction of regional
inequalities and income distribution in our country. However, this growth will
be sufficient for São Paulo to become the most important and prosperous city in
the southern hemisphere, the center of financial services for global investment
in South America and the headquarters of most major international companies in
the region.
This is a possible scenario for
thirty years in the future, ie, in just one generation. As methodological coordinator
of SP-2040 plan, I have confidence in the prospect of implementing the proposals
made, which were validated by a sample of 25 000 citizens. In addition to personal
convictions, other studies support our belief in the desired future perspective.
Recently, we have coordinated an analysis of São Paulo as part of an
international study of 12 large cities in developing countries. The results
showed that São Paulo inhabitants have a very critical view of the city, even
on subjects in which objective data show that we are better off than other
large cities in emerging countries.
This combination of critical vision
and our historical capability to work for a better future can certainly lead us
to our desired scenario of the City of São Paulo that we all want. To do so, we
must work together, stay focused on future goals and not allow demagogic deviations
from common goals of quality of life improvements and better opportunities for future
generations.
Prof. James Wright
PROFUTURO-FIA
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