Sao Paolo: Centro e Periferia

Earlier this week I met with the Gabriela, the secretary of the National MST office here in Sao Paolo. They were very receptive of me and my interests, and even helped create a programacion for visiting different MST offices and settlements in other parts of the country. In Sao Paolo the manager of the hostel, Mario, has shown me a round a good bit and has tremendously helped me manuever through the city and get connected with knowlegeabe people and relavent literature . Next week I will head south to Curitiba, Parana, which is internationally known for its environmental and pedestrain friendly urban planning.
On Tuesday I took an hour long train (an extension of the city's metro system) to the periferia or periphery of Sao Paolo. Over the centuries Sao Paolo's booming industry has caused massive migration to the city, where jobs and opportunities are plentiful, however this has caused such an immense urban sprawl that some citizens have to travel 2-3 hours each day to work in the city center. While Sao Paolo's metropolitan population is 20 million, there are another 20 million living in the 'greater Sao Paolo area.´
Although we travelled for an hour away from the city´s center, we still hadnt made it outside the city. In Jandira, a perihpery city where over 1 million people live, we took a taxi to an urban settlement of the MST.
While most of the MST´s land squatting and petitioning goes on in rural areas, the movement is also present in the city. In Janira, we visited a urban settlement which is located on the outskirts of a favela. A group of landless members of the MST squatted/camped in the area for over 3 years, trying to gain access to vacant land, and were moved by the police a number of times. Finally in 2008 the state of Sao Paolo awarded a group of 128 families a plot of land on the outskirts of the favela. The state government also agreed to provide the resources for the construction of the houses if the people provided the labor.
The result is a beautiful community of adobe brick apartments with adobe shingled roofing. Mario took part in the struggle and will live there once its complete. The arquitecture and design of the casas is different from that of most in the city because it includes open community spaces, with little plazas and balconies that families share, rather than the boxed, block style of common city houses where neihbors never interract.
While the movement is based in rural agrarian reform, the movement of landless workers is present wherever there are citizens without land or opportunity.