Brazil Case Study

Case Study on Brazil

Development and Health

The country of Brazil can be split up into 5 different areas; the North, North-East, West-Central, South and South-East. If you looked at Brazil on a Satellite map, the image you would see would only have one obvious difference, the land. In the North of Brazil there is very green, flat, infertile land, because of its tropical climate, whereas in the South the land is very fertile, with its lush grazing areas in amongst the mountains and plateaus. However, if you took a proper look into the development and infrastructure of different areas in Brazil, the change within certain areas would shock you. For example, it is partially the climate that can change a place within Brazil from developing to developed in a matter of years, however, the behaviour of all sorts of people majorly influences Brazil’s residents’ lives.

Let’s take São Paulo in the South-East region and compare it to Manaus in the North-West. São Paulo is Brazil's commercial, financial, and industrial center, manufacturing textiles, processed foods, metal products, electrical equipment, pharmaceuticals, chemicals, and furniture. It currently has a population of about 11million. The city was involved with the production of sugarcane before coffee cultivation and mechanical manufacturing boomed, bringing with it many job prospects. This lead to immigrants (mostly from Japan and Italy), massive population growth, and therefore it became developed because of its own independence. Its landscape also benefits the tourism factor of the city, because of its beautiful cloud capped mountains and plateaus, aswell as the glistening golden beaches along the coastline of the Atlantic Ocean. Life expectancy here is about 71 years old, probably due to the good healthcare service and living conditions. According to the , São Paulo has a “humid subtropical climate”. Daily temperatures average about 23˚C in January, and about 16˚C in July.

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Now Manaus is a city in the North region, inhabiting about 2million people. From -, there was a sudden boom of rubber production, leaving the plantation owners extravagantly wealthy, so the city prospered. Immigrants from North-East Brazil flooded the city seeking riches in the rubber trade. However, in 1920, and the growth of plantations in caused a drastic plunge in the prices in Brazil, and Manaus declined into poverty. The wealth produced by the exportation of rubber (from the end of the 19th century) financed the construction of luxurious buildings, in the middle of the tropical forest. This then attracted numerous wealthy businessmen, and led on to the high percentage of income that they receive from tourism today. Nowadays, due to its location in the tropics, timber and are a big part of the city’s income, as is petroleum refining, soap manufacturing, and chemical industries. Sadly, however, most of the people living in Manaus live in horrible conditions. Homes are clay huts with earth floors; they struggle to make a living from the poor farmland that is not being used for tourists. Unemployment is high, and many people suffer from malnutrition and sickness. Life expectancy here is about 49 years old. Climate is warm all year round, wet season in the winter months, temperatures generally being around 30-36˚C.

Some of the differences in these two regions are clear to notice if we ever visit these places, such as the living conditions, the ways of which an income can be made, and the climate.

The living conditions can reflect on how the area makes its income, it is just a case of not having enough money to buy/afford certain necessities. São Paulo has very good natural resources and land, handing the country the perfect opportunity to make money from it. Manaus just does not have the land, the climate, or the money to fund any projects. This then leaves the people who live in these places either quite well off because they can earn money, or very poor because they are not earning anything. Money can be brought in from the cultivation of crops or processing of raw materials, depending on the land, and natural resources! For example, São Paulo having rather good quality soils, they have the ability to grow/rear whatever they fancy. But Manaus cannot, the only thing that is really possible to cultivate there is trees for timber, and plants for Brazil nuts.

Being very poor leads to dramatic health problems such as malnutrition due to the lack of food and availability of clean water, death as a result of the malnutrition, and overall bad mentality of the people who are affected. This all depends on the healthcare system available obviously, and the affordability of it. The people of São Paulo have an excellent service, available throughout the city. Yet in Manaus the people find it difficult to afford it, even though it’s more likely that the majority of health problems are in the poorer areas, because of the malnutrition and conditions of the area.

The rise in population in Manaus is higher than in São Paulo, because there is a need of children to work, and possibly even for being there in the future to look after the parents when they get old or sick. If the desire for children is not present, then the birth rate could still be high because of the lack of contraception, and because of the pure non-understanding of how life begins. Also there is an extremely low literacy rate among the poor people, meaning that these people have limits to what they can achieve in their lifetimes. In São Paulo, many of the people who live there are fully content with their current achievements, so do not feel the need to have many children (if any) unless for the simple reason of wanting a family! Their jobs will be well paid, and housing will not be a problem. And as for getting their hands on food? Unless they feel their children have to run over to the local superstore for dinner’s ingredients because their hands are too busy tapping away on the keyboard of the latest Apple Laptop, there should be no complaints. Food is widely available here, imported from whatever country in the world, including the assortment and flavours of drinks.

The climates in these two cities are not that different, typical Brazilian tropical weather, however it does absolutely no favours for the already poor quality soils in Manaus. It receives severe droughts in summer, and then heavy flooding in the winter, depriving the land of all its nutrients. Many people are fooled that the land there is fertile and teeming with life, probably because the rainforest is thought to be so lush and green. They do not realise that even though the Amazon Rainforest is next door to Manaus, the way rainforests grow and gather nutrients is extremely intricate and complicated. Both São Paulo and Manuas can use their climates to their advantage however; the lovely side of it can make an absolute heaven for people from, shall we say, Inverness. The wonderfully hot and sunny weather brings hoards of tourists every year to these kind of places, this resulting in their money being spent locally and sometimes, in large sums.

Crime rates are usually much higher in places of low standard. This is partially due to the governments tending to police and “govern” more in the richer areas, focusing on making them better. However, this is not the case everywhere; the Brazilian Government tore down a lot of favelas throughout the slums of Brazil (a number of which were in São Paulo) and replaced them with low-cost housing, with some public water pumps too. When governments do decide to try and do something about the state of some places, sometimes the research that they put into schemes is too poor, and in the end the scheme fails, so the money is wasted. All because they had insufficient knowledge of the area.

The indicators are clear to see, they give a good understanding of how much more developed an area is compared to another, even within a country. The only precautions that must be considered with development indicators are that these statistics are only averages, they measure just a tiny part of time in that area. All of the above is not a set of ordinary statistics, it is just information that leads me to say that I believe São Paulo is more developed than Manaus. And that partially due to people’s actions (from the past or at present, or to come in the future) we have made a huge impact in both places, leaving São Paulo and Manaus in the state that they are in today.