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Under The Concrete Of São Paulo, Hidden Rivers Still Flow, Ignored By Urbanization, But Present In Collective Memory And Urban Daily Life
Many do not realize, but São Paulo still coexists with rivers and streams that remain alive, even when invisible. Urbanization buried them beneath concrete, transforming the city’s landscape. This choice changed the relationship of the population with water and brought serious consequences.
The Rivers Under The Concrete
A large part of the capital’s waters have been channeled and placed in underground galleries. This decision, made without planning, altered the landscape and made way for avenues and buildings.
The effect is mainly seen on days of heavy rain, when the rivers reappear forcibly, overflowing into the streets.
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The coordinator of the Tietê River pollution cleanup program, Rodolfo Costa e Silva, explains that real estate development has pressured the use of the areas.
“Since people could not speculate real estate over the streams, they offered for the streets to become the streams. The rest turned into housing,” he said in an interview with Fapesp.
From Leisure To Pollution
In the early 20th century, the scene was very different. Families gathered on the banks of the Tietê to swim, fish, or even sail on boats during the weekends. Water was part of daily life, a space for leisure and coexistence.
Over time, accelerated urbanization changed the situation. The increase in domestic and industrial sewage discharges contaminated the river.
By the 1950s, it became treated as an open-air sewage. Unfortunately, this reality remains to this day, even after decades of recovery attempts.
Traces Of Water In The City
The historian Janes Jorge, a professor at Unifesp, recalls that the city’s growth moved toward the rivers.
“The population growth, economic development, and land market caused the city to move toward the rivers,” he stated to Fapesp. Therefore, urbanization was built on top of water, but without respecting its natural logic.
Still, the rivers have not entirely disappeared from collective memory. They remain in the names of neighborhoods such as Vila Nova Cachoeirinha, Água Funda, Água Rasa, and Rio Pequeno.
For Luiz Campos Júnior, co-creator of the Rios e Ruas initiative, the streets carry these memories. “If you open a street guide of São Paulo, you will see a lot of references to the water that is in that place or that has been visible in that location,” he shared.
With information from NSC Total.
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