Delays in Subway Construction Lead to Urban Decay in São Paulo

11/22/2016 - 11h50

The interruption of construction work on São Paulo's subway lines has left entire city blocks all but deserted in the state capital.

Several of the nearly 600 buildings that had to be evacuated due to construction have been taken over by drug addicts and are filled with trash and graffiti.

Both the governor, Geraldo Alckmin (PSDB), and one of the contractors responsible for construction, have claimed that such delays are due to a lack of resources.

A few years ago if someone were to have walked past the area designated for the Água Rasa subway station on the green line, they would have seen busy streets and plenty of commerce.

Now they would see abandoned houses covered in graffiti and weeds growing out of cracks in the sidewalk. The area where buildings once stood has become a wasteland.

The wall that used to protect the area has been damaged and from the inside one can see a couch and scorched earth surrounded by tons of rubble.

The famous "Broken Windows" theory, which comes up often in research on public safety, holds that urban decay and crime go up in areas that appear to be abandoned.

Residents of the Água Rasa neighborhood have already noticed such effects. They point out that at night, the area is swarming with drug addicts and criminals.

The lack of resources has led the government and contractors to interrupt construction of significant portions of new subway line stretches.

The expansion of the green line all the way to Guarulhos will be suspended until December.

Construction on the orange line - which will connect Brasilândia to the downtown neighborhood of Liberdade - was also affected.

The line was initially projected to be inaugurated in 2020, although now, no such timetable even exists.

598 buildings were evacuated to get construction on both these lines underway.

In order to elaborate this report, stations currently under construction in the eastern, western and northern regions of the city were also examined, leading to the conclusion that the lapse between evacuation and construction work has caused various collateral effects.

According to residents, abandoned city blocks lead to a lack of security and some people also break into evacuated areas to dump waste irregularly while also looking for scraps.

The São Paulo Metro stated that it supervises evacuated buildings and promised to clean up rubble-infested areas.

Translated by THOMAS MATHEWSON

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