RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Some 40 kilometers and 23 years of life separate a resident of Moema, a wealthy neighborhood in the southern part of São Paulo, from someone who lives in Cidade Tiradentes, a poor neighborhood in the eastern area.
The infant mortality rate in Marsilac, in the far south, is 23 times higher than in Perdizes, in the western area. You can walk to different cinemas in the Avenida Paulista area, yet 54 districts in the capital do not even have a single movie theater.
In a single city, São Paulo shows rates comparable to those of the world’s wealthiest. and of its poorest countries, according to Rede Nossa São Paulo’s Map of Inequality, published this Tuesday, November 5th, which compares indicators from 93 districts and unveils the contrasts of the São Paulo metropolis.
The most striking is the average age at death. In Moema, the average age of people who died over the past year was 80.6 years – for comparison purposes, the average in Germany and Denmark is 81 years.
In Cidade Tiradentes, on the other hand, the figure stood at 57.3 years – little more than that of a resident of Somalia.
The NGO’s calculation is not that of life expectancy at birth, which considers a series of factors, such as the human development index. Rede Nossa São Paulo calculates the average age of people who actually died in a given year, including infant mortality, which is high in Cidade Tiradentes.
Violence is regarded as yet another important factor, as it lowers the average lifespan in the city’s eastern district. The impact is cyclical since crime is considered an agent of delay in economic development. A study by IPEA (Institute of Applied Economic Research) estimates that the country’s losses from violence cost the equivalent of six percent of the country’s GDP.
“This shows the complexities of living in a place where there is so much inequality. There are several cities in one”, says Carolina Guimarães, coordinator of Rede Nossa São Paulo.
A resident of Cidade Tiradentes, Ângelo Guilherme, jokingly says that “thank God” he surpassed the average and reached 67 years of age.
“We depend a lot on the government here, which we hardly ever see. But next year, in the elections, there will be politicians here from 7 AM to 10 PM seeking votes. Meanwhile, we have to do whatever we can. We are tireless, we don’t stop,” he says.
Ângelo has set up a cultural association, called the Elite, which provides soccer lessons, ballet, vocational courses and is active in the fight for housing. “This project has already taken many people off the streets,” he says.
Cidade Tiradentes, the worst in terms of average life expectancy, is in the far east of the city. Marsilac, in the far south, is no better: the average age of death in the district is 57.5 years.
The region accounts for the worst indicators of infant mortality (23 times higher than in Perdizes) and adolescent pregnancy, which is 53.4 times higher than in Moema.
Shortly before talking to Folha, João Cedro, 46, a guardian counselor, was assisting a grandmother in the region who had no idea what to do with her granddaughter, who is in her fifth month of pregnancy, at the age of 14.
“It’s very common here, I always get cases like this. Teenagers get pregnant, they have to drop out of school, they can’t find a job and the cycle goes on,” he says. “And our hands are tied. In this specific case, the grandmother said she guided her all the time, but the girl got involved with an older school-age boy and, when she realized it, she was pregnant.”
The periphery versus the center rationale, however, “is at odds in some points,” says Carolina Guimarães. “It’s interesting to think that the wealthy, who pay more to live, breathe a more polluted air and are more prone to traffic accidents,” she says.
According to the map data, central districts such as Sé, República and Bela Vista, and wealthy areas such as Pinheiros, Moema, Itaim Bibi and Jardim Paulista, contain up to 1,200 times more atmospheric pollution than remote and poorer districts such as Marsilac, Parelheiros, Grajaú, and Perus.
The main factor behind this inequality is the fact that there is much less vehicle traffic in these regions.
For the same reason, districts such as Barra Funda, Sé and Bom Retiro, in addition to wealthy areas such as Morumbi, Pinheiros and Itaim Bibi, record up to 13 times more traffic accidents than Jardim Ângela, São Rafael and Cidade Tiradentes.
Source: Folha S. Paulo