The old adage that “Brazil is the country of the future, and will always be” now seems wrong. This place feels increasingly conservative, and it’s getting old fast. At the domestic airport you see couples with only one child, not two or three children, never mind four.
Country and Western music, in its Brazilian form, is very popular.
It doesn’t sound like the next Pelé will come from Brazil.
Sao Paulo as a city is very developed. The homicide rate is down, and the good neighborhoods are great and growing in size. The business community is vibrant, interesting buildings abound, and there’s a real art scene. It is undoubtedly the number one city in Latin America, rivaled only by Mexico City. It, along with Mexico City, has evolved into a global “must know” city, although it is rarely treated that way by outsiders. In the three days I spent there, walking around many places, I did not see a single person who was obviously a foreign tourist. That’s crazy, but it’s also a sign there’s good value here.
Sao Paulo has food to die for. It’s great for Brazilian (of course), meat/beef, Japanese, and Italian, and it’s great for many other offerings as well. I had a wonderful fifteen-course omikase for $110 at a Michelin star restaurant. The center, Kan Suke, has only eight seats, but I can get a table by asking an hour in advance.
With Italian food perhaps the second best country in the world? Meat might be number one, at least if you’re willing to put aside the tiny country of Uruguay. In beans it is twice as high, and the fruits are very good. Chocolate ice cream and gelato abound. All odds considered, I’d rather spend a week eating here than in London or Paris or Rome, or for that matter New York City.
The people are very friendly, surprisingly few speak decent English, and the warmth of Brazil is still there.
I was very pleased with my stay at Hotel Unique, because of its facilities and convenient location.
Observers should be very optimistic about Brazil’s economy. Yes it is over regulated and the government is locked into spending too much money. But hyperinflation is now a distant memory, meaningful monetary consolidation took place in the 1990s, and the country has many of its strengths. Remember that in developing countries, poor growth is a big problem. Brazil has now abandoned many (not all!) of those dangers. Slow, steady growth must be able to find itself somewhere, even if it is too fast.
My biggest concern about Brazil is the demographics and population decline. In recent times the TFR has been in the 1.3 to 1.4 range, which is not satisfactory at all. A shrinking population is bad per se, and it will hurt many regions of the world because of incomplete market integration, nationally and globally. More importantly, the country does not have an obvious and easy option to attract a high number of desirable immigrants, at least not related to its size. There is Venezuela and Bolivia, but the former of those may go as the main source of population.
Will Brazil’s interest rate rebound? Will Brazil regain its position as the world’s most influential culture, as it was in the 1960s to early 1990s? It is not clear. But if the question is “should you visit?”, the answer is a definite yes.
