When and why did Sao Paulo overtake Rio as Brazil's largest city? (culture, Europeans)
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Another thiing that makes São Paulo so "obscure" is its climate, totally opposite to the brazilian tropical.
The city is the hell during summer. While the country is enjoying the beaches, preparing for carnival, etc São Paulo is under daily floods and its consequent massive traffic jams. Even at those very beautiful São Paulo state beaches it rains every day during summer.
The phenomenon of Sao Paulo having overtaken Rio as the largest Brazilian city around 1960 is not unlike Toronto having overtaken Montreal as the largest Canadian city in the 1970s. Just as the loss of Rio as Brazil's capital in 1960 was the most obvious factor but not the only one in Brazil, so too the Quebec nationalist events of the 1960s and especially the 1970s were the most obvious factor but not the only one in Canada.
I think the key nobody spoke São Paulo is the biggest Brazilian State in population almost 45 million of people.
São Paulo always had the strongest Brazilian countryside and received half of all Europeans immigrants before Brazilian independence, so it was predictable when started the urbanization paulista’s capital city would become bigger than Rio.
Rio de Janeiro State is much smaller than São Paulo, they are virtually only Rio metro area.
São Paulo in fact is a city of just 11 millions people but surrounded of 39 independent, industrialized and riches cities that form Sao Paulo metro area with 21 millions of people.
In Rio I just see Niteroi in the same status.
In Brazil internal state migration is much bigger than inter States migration, may be for cultural and homesick issues. So Rio de Janeiro had never a big countryside helping his growth with taxes and young workers.
In Brazil as a big country each State is more or less like a country, for example someone in the countryside of Paraná looks for Curitiba as his capital in all sense not for São Paulo or Rio the same for Rio Grande do Sul with Porto Alegre, Bahia with Salvador, Ceará with Fortaleza and the same in all Brazilian states.
Brasilia is like Washington DC, is just where the president and politicians live when they are in charge, but they are not really people from there, Brazil had never a president from Brasilia, we are not ruled from a ‘’Brasiliense elite’’.
Another thiing that makes São Paulo so "obscure" is its climate, totally opposite to the brazilian tropical.
The city is the hell during summer. While the country is enjoying the beaches, preparing for carnival, etc São Paulo is under daily floods and its consequent massive traffic jams. Even at those very beautiful São Paulo state beaches it rains every day during summer.
Exaggerated.
No everyday or every year and only in parts of the city close Rivers. Paris has inundations and is a knowing city.
Rio de Janeiro is the most knew Brazilian city because it is the biggest touristic destination.
Of course people won’t left their cold lands in northern hemisphere to go to São Paulo a very subtropical weather they are seeking for sun, hot weather and tropical beaches.
The phenomenon of Sao Paulo having overtaken Rio as the largest Brazilian city around 1960 is not unlike Toronto having overtaken Montreal as the largest Canadian city in the 1970s. Just as the loss of Rio as Brazil's capital in 1960 was the most obvious factor but not the only one in Brazil, so too the Quebec nationalist events of the 1960s and especially the 1970s were the most obvious factor but not the only one in Canada.
I've reflected more on this analogy, and a key difference between the Rio-Sao Paulo and Montreal-Toronto dynamics is as follows: Throughout the 20th century and beyond, Sao Paulo has always been the economic centre of Brazil and Rio the second-largest economic centre, but Rio - in addition - had been the capital of Brazil until the new city of Brasilia was built in 1960, afterwards remaining as just the second-largest economic centre. Whereas in the Canadian case, Montreal was the economic centre of Canada through most of the 20th century and Toronto was merely the second-largest (even though Ontario has had more people and a larger GDP than Quebec), but events like the 1976 Parti Quebecois victory helped reverse these cities' roles, so that Toronto is now the largest economic centre and Montreal is the second-largest.
I've reflected more on this analogy, and a key difference between the Rio-Sao Paulo and Montreal-Toronto dynamics is as follows: Throughout the 20th century and beyond, Sao Paulo has always been the economic centre of Brazil and Rio the second-largest economic centre, but Rio - in addition - had been the capital of Brazil until the new city of Brasilia was built in 1960, afterwards remaining as just the second-largest economic centre. Whereas in the Canadian case, Montreal was the economic centre of Canada through most of the 20th century and Toronto was merely the second-largest (even though Ontario has had more people and a larger GDP than Quebec), but events like the 1976 Parti Quebecois victory helped reverse these cities' roles, so that Toronto is now the largest economic centre and Montreal is the second-largest.
The Parti Quebecois is a nationalist party that has advocated the separation of Quebec from the rest of Canada. Its first victory was in 1976, and that sent many anglophones in Quebec packing up and moving to Ontario and elsewhere in English-speaking Canada, the United States, etc. I'm saying here that such an event helped make Toronto larger than Montreal, the way that the emergence of Brasilia as the Brazilian capital helped make Sao Paulo larger than Rio de Janeiro (the one which lost its capital status).
I've reflected more on this analogy, and a key difference between the Rio-Sao Paulo and Montreal-Toronto dynamics is as follows: Throughout the 20th century and beyond, Sao Paulo has always been the economic centre of Brazil and Rio the second-largest economic centre, but Rio - in addition - had been the capital of Brazil until the new city of Brasilia was built in 1960, afterwards remaining as just the second-largest economic centre..
I don't know about "economics" specifically but in terms of population, Rio de Janeiro was Brazil's largest city until 1960-65, so for two thirds of the 20th century.
I don't know about "economics" specifically but in terms of population, Rio de Janeiro was Brazil's largest city until 1960-65, so for two thirds of the 20th century.
When I say "economic centre", I mean where there's much manufacturing and other commercial activity. The fact that Sao Paulo has had more such activity than Rio throughout the 20th century, despite not outstripping Rio in population until roughly the 1960s, caused it to attract significantly more immigration from Europe, Japan, etc. than Rio all along. In Canada, it was Montreal that attracted more immigration (e.g. Eastern European Jews) than Toronto up until the 1960s or 1970s, because it was Montreal that had more economic activity than Toronto up until then. Many descendants of said immigrants then moved from Montreal to Toronto.
As already mentioned, most of the immigrants came at first to work in agriculture, not in the city. The growth of the city happaned later in Sao Paulo.
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similarities with Toronto vs. Montreal
