Abstract
Based on the analysis of the press, urbanistic projects, and texts by intellectuals, this article discusses some transformations in the representations of the São Paulo city’s future in the 1950s and 1960s. In the first half of the 20th century, urban growth was hegemonically represented in newspapers, in the intellectual world, and among urban planners as a positive element for the progress and modernization of São Paulo. However, after the metropolis became the most important city in Brazil, expectations about its future changed. A series of problems gained space in these representations, figuring side by side with the hopes for a better city. São Paulo’s future was thus frayed between redemptive and apocalyptic perspectives, each anchored in specific points of social space and cultivated by different sectors of the local elites.
Keywords
City of São Paulo; Representations of the Future; History of Intellectuals; History of the Press; History of Cities