section_path: Urban infrastructure/Urban planning
section_name: Urban planning
paragraph_text: Urban planning
  
  São Paulo has a myriad of urban fabrics. The original nuclei of the city are vertical, characterized by the presence of commercial buildings and services; And the peripheries are generally developed with two to four-story buildings – although such generalization certainly meets with exceptions in the fabric of the metropolis. Compared to other global cities (such as the island cities of New York City and Hong Kong), however, São Paulo is considered a "low-rise building" city. Its tallest buildings rarely reach forty stories, and the average residential building is twenty. Nevertheless, it is the fourth city in the world in quantity of buildings, according to the page specialized in research of data on buildings Emporis Buildings, besides possessing what was considered until 2014 the tallest skyscraper of the country, the Mirante do Vale, also known as Palácio Zarzur Kogan, with 170 meters of height and 51 floors.
  
  Such tissue heterogeneity, however, is not as predictable as the generic model can make us imagine. Some central regions of the city began to concentrate indigents, drug trafficking, street vending and prostitution, which encouraged the creation of new socio-economic centralities. The characterization of each region of the city also underwent several changes throughout the 20th century. With the relocation of industries to other cities or states, several areas that once housed factory sheds have become commercial or even residential areas.
  
  São Paulo has a history of actions, projects and plans related to urban planning that can be traced to the governments of Antonio da Silva Prado, Baron Duprat, Washington and Luis Francisco Prestes Maia. However, in general, the city was formed during the 20th century, growing from village to metropolis through a series of informal processes and irregular urban sprawl.
  
  Urban growth in São Paulo has followed three patterns since the beginning of the 20th century, according to urban historians: since the late 19th century and until the 1940s, São Paulo was a condensed city in which different social groups lived in a small urban zone separated by type of housing; from the 1940s to the 1980s, São Paulo followed a model of center-periphery social segregation, in which the upper and middle-classes occupied central and modern areas while the poor moved towards precarious, self-built housing in the periphery; and from the 1980s onward, new transformations have brought the social classes closer together in spatial terms, but separated by walls and security technologies that seek to isolate the richer classes in the name of security. Thus, São Paulo differs considerably from other Brazilian cities such as Belo Horizonte and Goiânia, whose initial expansion followed determinations by a plan, or a city like Brasília, whose master plan had been fully developed prior to construction.
  
  The effectiveness of these plans has been seen by some planners and historians as questionable. Some of these scholars argue that such plans were produced exclusively for the benefit of the wealthier strata of the population while the working classes would be relegated to the traditional informal processes. In São Paulo until the mid-1950s, the plans were based on the idea of "demolish and rebuild", including former Mayor Francisco Prestes Maia's road plan for São Paulo (known as the Avenues Plan) or Saturnino de Brito's plan for the Tietê River. The Plan of the Avenues was implemented during the 1920s and sought to build large avenues connecting the city center with the outskirts. This plan included renewing the commercial city center, leading to real estate speculation and gentrification of several downtown neighborhoods. The plan also led to the expansion of bus services, which would soon replace the trolley as the preliminary transportation system. This contributed to the outwards expansion of São Paulo and the peripherization of poorer residents. Peripheral neighborhoods were usually unregulated and consisted mainly of self-built single-family houses.
  
  In 1968 the Urban Development Plan proposed the Basic Plan for Integrated Development of São Paulo, under the administration of Figueiredo Ferraz. The main result was zoning laws. It lasted until 2004 when the Basic Plan was replaced by the current Master Plan. That zoning, adopted in 1972, designated "Z1" areas (residential areas designed for elites) and "Z3" (a "mixed zone" lacking clear definitions about their characteristics). Zoning encouraged the growth of suburbs with minimal control and major speculation. After the 1970s peripheral lot regulation increased and infrastructure in the periphery improved, driving land prices up. The poorest and the newcomers now could not purchase their lot and build their house, and were forced to look for a housing alternative. As a result, favelas and precarious tenements (cortiços) appeared. These housing types were often closer to the city's center: favelas could sprawl in any unused terrain (often dangerous or unsanitary) and decaying or abandoned buildings for tenements were abundant inside the city. Favelas went back into the urban perimeter, occupying the small lots not yet occupied by urbanization – alongside polluted rivers, railways, or between bridges. By 1993, 19.8% of São Paulo's population lived in favelas, compared to 5.2% in 1980. Today, it is estimated that 2.1 million Paulistas live in favelas, which represents about 11% of the metropolitan area's population.