Power Shift: Cities

[Yuri]

This phenomenon of cities changing position as largest of a country/region/province always interested me. Let's start with the two most dramatic cases in the world:

Rio

Ipanema by Jean Léonard Polo, on Flickr

vs

São Paulo

Source

Rio de Janeiro had been the largest city of Brazil since the XVIII century, while São Paulo, although few years older was just a small provincial city up to late XIX century.

Then coffee happened, immigrants came, industrialization began and everything changed: São Paulo skyrocketed while Rio de Janeiro stagnated (relatively). The most important mark of this process came with the national capital leaving Rio to Brasília. On the early 1990's, as a final blow, Rio de Janeiro Stock Exchange were bought by São Paulo's and ceased to exist.

By the 2000's, oil gave Rio de Janeiro some hope, but the city still keeps losing ground for São Paulo, although pretty much everything is already in São Paulo by now. Today São Paulo is the centre of Brazil, working much more as a "Brazilian London" than a "Brazilian New York".

Let's see the figures:

1872

Rio de Janeiro
City ------- 274,972

São Paulo
City -------- 31,385


1890

Rio de Janeiro
City ------- 522,651

São Paulo
City -------- 64,934


1900

Rio de Janeiro
City ------- 811,443

São Paulo
City ------- 239,620


1920

Rio de Janeiro
City ----- 1,157,873

São Paulo
City ------- 579,033


1940

Rio de Janeiro
Metro ---- 2,203,345
City ----- 1,764,141

São Paulo
Metro ---- 1,568,045
City ----- 1,326,261


1950

Rio de Janeiro
Metro ---- 3,137,977
City ----- 2,377,451

São Paulo
Metro ---- 2,662,776
City ----- 2,198,096


1960

Rio de Janeiro
Metro ---- 4,811,937
City ----- 3,307,163

São Paulo
Metro ---- 4,791,245
City ----- 3,825,351


1970

São Paulo
Metro ---- 8,139,705
City ----- 5,924,612

Rio de Janeiro
Metro ---- 6,797,976
City ----- 4,251,918


1980

São Paulo
Metro --- 12,588,745
City ----- 8,493,217

Rio de Janeiro
Metro ---- 8,637,995
City ----- 5,090,723


1991

São Paulo
Metro --- 15,444,941
City ----- 9,646,185

Rio de Janeiro
Metro ---- 9,647,165
City ----- 5,480,768


2000

São Paulo
Metro --- 17,878,703
City ---- 10,434,252

Rio de Janeiro
Metro --- 10,681,517
City ----- 5,857,904


2010

São Paulo
Metro --- 19,672,582
City ---- 11,244,369

Rio de Janeiro
Metro --- 11,604,332
City ----- 6,323,037