Anamika Jain
Instituto Pólis
São Paulo, Brazil
When one thinks of gentrification, São Paulo is not necessarily the first city that comes into mind. But pick up a conversation with any local here and they’ll be sure tell you just how rampant it is.
While my official internship is teaching me a lot about gentrification and right to the city in theory, there is no doubting that so much of my learning about the topic has come from just talking to locals here. I realized quite early on in my stay here that I wanted more from the city than just an internship; I wanted to talk to people and get their opinions on the topics I was researching, I wanted to see how these topics were specifically pertinent to Brazil (which is one of the only countries in the world to include right to the city in its constitution!), and I wanted to ask questions about topics like displacement and compare them to the answers we got when we did the same in New York (during Becky Amato’s Gallatin course: (Dis)placed Urban Histories). Obviously, this was quite ambitious, but lucky for me, I made a wonderful group of friends, all Brazil born-and-bred, and I have been learning more about the city with them than I ever could have imagined. As a bunch of young, left-wing millennials, they are generally more than happy to explain anything from politics to history for me, and I’ve realized more and more how connected all these topics are, that I cannot separate urban studies from a tumultuous history or rich culture of a city. I’ve learned some very interesting things: the hip street I love to party on here was the mecca of strip clubs and shady bars just 10 years ago, the walk I make from my apartment to my favourite restaurant in the Centro would have been unthinkable for women a couple of years ago, there is an exponential growth in vegan and vegetarian places recently – all textbook signs of gentrification that I would have never known had I not talked to people around me.
Simply asking my friends questions about their lives reaps amazing insights into gentrification for me. My friend Marcelo who lives in a new, bougie development in the Glicerio neighbourhood – known to be home to the more rough-and-tumble lot – often talks about how he feels like part of the problem when he thinks about his place in his rapidly gentrifying community. But as a young black student, he also expresses his comfort in walking around on a neighbourhood where most people are black and in being able to buy cheap groceries from the neighbourhood grocery store. Another friend of mine, Má, a young white-passing woman, who lives in the Centro – the inner city – talks about the convenience of living in downtown SP, close to the subway and several stores, and paying cheap rent. However, safety at night is known to be a major problem in the area, but as more young and white people are moving in, there is an increased police presence and most buildings are now equipped with security guards. These are just two of the many friends I have prodded for information, and their stories hold a striking parallel to the narratives of gentrification I was hearing in New York.
There are also certain neighbourhoods in the city that just scream gentrification. When Alison and I first went to Vila Madelena, a hip area with everything from art galleries to tattoo parlours and fancy bars, all we could do is stare wide-eyed and try to believe we had not just got off the bus and ended up in Williamsburg. Also interesting to note was just how “white” the area was and how much more English we were hearing around us in the bars and restaurants.
What I’m seeing and hearing around me is contributing heaps to the research that I am doing for Polis. It allows me to align theory with concrete experience, and to put faces to the rather dry word “gentrification”. I’m so lucky to have met such an amazing group of people to show me so much of the city, and I am so lucky to be in São Paulo and see the theory I’m working with.