Well, at least in the City of São Paulo that certainly is the case.
It's the same old story year after year in the city. A municipal bylaw prohibits residents from cutting, trimming or pruning trees under penalty of heavy fines. Yet the constant and frantic telephone calls to the city reporting dangerous and rotting trees fall on deaf ears. In the vast majority of cases where trees have fallen causing extensive damage, injury and sometimes even deaths there is one common thread... people involved invariably report that they've placed numerous calls to the municipal authorities reporting the dangers presented by that particular tree and nothing gets done. Nobody from the city ever shows up to even make a cursory inspection in most cases.
If a city, any city, takes action to prevent it's inhabitants from taking necessary and remedial action of this nature, then the city is beholden to do it themselves in a continuous, comprehensive and consistent manner. This is certainly not the case in São Paulo. Hundreds of such events are recorded in São Paulo each year during the rainy periods and there is no sign of change anywhere on the horizon.
Acorda Prefeito Haddad, acorda!!!
Cheers,
James Expat-blog Experts Team
Don't take shelter under trees, take shelter FROM them!!!
Shame it isn't a better close-up photo, but from my armchair (and I have no idea if they are grown in Brazil) this looks like a black locust. The very worst type of trash tree.
And this junk tree looks to have been growing in a pavement restricted sidewalk median, a guarantee of insufficient root zone to support the weight and canopy of the tree.
This happens everywhere I've ever lived. Trees! They're all good anywhere! Trees.are.good. Moar trees.
Well yes, and no. Some trees are just crap species everywhere. Sidewalk median strips are terrible places for trees of every kind. If they're not falling over in a storm, the roots are pushing up and destroying the sidewalks and pavement.
My US city planted thousands of trees in the sidewalk median just last year, directly underneath all of the utility lines, for miles. Then they passed a city ordinance requiring a report from a city arborist to remove or prune any street planted tree. Within two years all of these trees will have reached the height of the overhead utility wires, and will require pruning and/or removal. Enter the city arborist. 
Who doesn't love government?!
Pretty much describes exactly the situation in São Paulo. Yes, you're right the vast majority of these trees ARE planted in areas restricted by pavement and that will also conflict with overhead power lines, which only invites trouble in the future. Despite the fact that São Paulo too has a city arborist, he's either on perpetual vacation or the position is just a phantom posting like many in government here. He's certainly not doing the job mandated to him. It could also be just that the City of São Paulo is content to leave the trees fall at which point clean-up is the responsibility of the Corpo de Bombeiros which is funded by the state government. 
I've heard all kinds of complaints from all over the world about government being either too intrusive in the day-to-day lives of its citizens, or being unresponsive to their needs, foot dragging, corrupt. Largely these come from members in developed nations where things ACTUALLY do work as they're supposed to, or nearly as they're supposed to... I firmly believe that if some of these people spent some time here in Brazil it would be a real eye opener, they'd go back home thinking THEIR government was the best in the world and they'd never complain again. Nothing works here, sad to say... believe it!
Oh yeah, and they'd be going back home with a much clearer idea of exactly how much of their tax dollars come back to them in the form of services.... here these people are taxed out of their skins and virtually none of it comes back to them in services. Worse still the government openly brags about that fact!
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