Where to Live in São Paulo

Location is so important in São Paulo and is a major factor to consider when moving here. If you can get an opportunity to live near to where you work then take it, this may be a chance that won’t cross your path again.

São Paulo is a huge city and if you live at one end but work at the other, you’ll find that half your life is spent in traffic or squashed between people on a somewhat limited network of metros and buses. For people who drive, it is common for them to spend between 3 and 4 hours behind the wheel commuting to work per day. Due to the economic boom in São Paulo, the number of cars naturally increased which helped it earn the title of the city with the ‘Worst Traffic Jams in the World’ according to The Times in 2008. I can wholeheartedly agree with this after once spending two hours of my Friday night standing up on a bus just to travel a distance of less than 10km. I wasn’t pleased as you can imagine.

To try and limit the traffic, depending on the number plate of the car, each vehicle is assigned a certain day of the week in which it can’t be on the roads during rush hour. However, those crafty Paulistanos have got a way around this: simply buy another car. Easy! And thus, doubling the traffic at the same time.

You could avoid the traffic by taking a helicopter taxi. No, I’m not kidding – the rich among the city cleverly avoid all traffic by simply flying over it.  However, the rest of us can try public transportation instead. But this too can be a problem. With a total length of around 74kms, the metro system, as nice and efficient as it is, is far too limited and small for the fourth largest city in the World. For many people, their daily commute consists of taking a bus or two to the metro, then afterwards another bus to their place of work. Repeat the process for the journey back. And all this with about 5.2 million other people.

So, with the roads defying the laws of physics with their capacity of vehicles and the public transport being time-consuming and crowded, the best option is to spend some time and research on where to live. In São Paulo, the main business districts (and thus, the main area of work) are on Avenida Paulista (near to the city centre and is an important financial sector), Itiam Bibi specifically Juscelino Kubitchek, Luis Carlos Berrini and Faria Lima in the South-West Central of the city. These are the areas to try and live in or nearby, as these will offer the best teaching opportunities if you’re aiming to teach in São Paulo, as well as good restaurants, bars and with good transport all around so the rest of the city becomes very accessible. It is more expensive to live in these areas (rent can be extortionate in some places) but if you look around you will find something within reason. If you are happy not to have the balcony, the en suite and the outdoor bbq areas like a lot of the modern flats have, then you shouldn’t have a problem.

Location is so important in São Paulo and is a major factor to consider when moving here. If you can get an opportunity to live near to where you work then take it, this may be a chance that won’t cross your path again.

São Paulo is a huge city and if you live at one end but work at the other, you’ll find that half your life is spent in traffic or squashed between people on a somewhat limited network of metros and buses. For people who drive, it is common for them to spend between 3 and 4 hours behind the wheel commuting to work per day. Due to the economic boom in São Paulo, the number of cars naturally increased which helped it earn the title of the city with the ‘Worst Traffic Jams in the World’ according to The Times in 2008. I can wholeheartedly agree with this after once spending two hours of my Friday night standing up on a bus just to travel a distance of less than 10km. I wasn’t pleased as you can imagine.

To try and limit the traffic, depending on the number plate of the car, each vehicle is assigned a certain day of the week in which it can’t be on the roads during rush hour. However, those crafty Paulistanos have got a way around this: simply buy another car. Easy! And thus, doubling the traffic at the same time.

You could avoid the traffic by taking a helicopter taxi. No, I’m not kidding – the rich among the city cleverly avoid all traffic by simply flying over it.  However, the rest of us can try public transportation instead. But this too can be a problem. With a total length of around 74kms, the metro system, as nice and efficient as it is, is far too limited and small for the fourth largest city in the World. For many people, their daily commute consists of taking a bus or two to the metro, then afterwards another bus to their place of work. Repeat the process for the journey back. And all this with about 5.2 million other people.

So, with the roads defying the laws of physics with their capacity of vehicles and the public transport being time-consuming and crowded, the best option is to spend some time and research on where to live. In São Paulo, the main business districts (and thus, the main area of work) are on Avenida Paulista (near to the city centre and is an important financial sector), Itiam Bibi specifically Juscelino Kubitchek, Luis Carlos Berrini and Faria Lima in the South-West Central of the city. These are the areas to try and live in or nearby, as these will offer the best teaching opportunities if you’re aiming to teach in São Paulo, as well as good restaurants, bars and with good transport all around so the rest of the city becomes very accessible. It is more expensive to live in these areas (rent can be extortionate in some places) but if you look around you will find something within reason. If you are happy not to have the balcony, the en suite and the outdoor bbq areas like a lot of the modern flats have, then you shouldn’t have a problem.