It's not easy living in São Paulo

As much as I love this city it sometimes doesn't seem like the largest and most advanced city in South America, not by a long shot.

As anybody who lives here can tell you the major problem here is that all of the infrastructure is very old and has suffered from a severe lack of maintenance over the years.

AES Eletropaulo has a horrible record for providing service to the city. Blackouts are frequent and generally prolonged. Yet, they continue charging high rates and are constantly asking for increases.

Water and sewer services provided by SABESP are hit and miss at the very best. Water outages happen all across the city, water mains and sewer lines rupture causing not only great damages but waste of potable water that is mind boggling. Sometimes the ruptured water/sewer/rainwater lines open huge craters that swallow cars, sometimes even people as in the case of several senior citizens who were getting off a bus when the road and sidewalk under the bus and them gave way.

Rains.... well what can I say? Every time it rains in São Paulo there are generally several areas of flooding which not only displace people from their homes and destroy their belongings. Certainly, much of the flooding is only made worse by the fact that the people here have the horrible habit of throwing garbage everywhere and this plugs sewers. The slightest rain also wreaks havoc on the flow of traffic in a city where at the best of times it's already chaotic. Another problem is that every rain sparks a series of problems with the traffic signals all across the city, creating massive delays and causing accidents. It is surprising that in a city that has heavy rainfalls every year, each time it rains you would think it was the first time in history it has happened. I have never seen a place so totally unprepared to deal with rain. I have lived in Brazil for ten years and in all that time nothing has been done in any concrete way to resolve the problems.

Bridges and viaducts throughout Greater São Paulo have fallen into a sorry state of disrepair and are falling apart bit-by-bit. Many have been closed for extended periods to make emergency repairs when something major has happened.

Potholes are epidemic, anyone who owns a car here can testify to that fact. Almost everybody has had tires damaged or worse still as a result of hitting an unexpected pothole.

The city is not at all "user friendly" for people with handicaps. Sidewalks everywhere are in terrible condition and on many streets they have constant changes in level, sometimes looking much like a staircase rather than a sidewalk. In most places ramping is not done at intersections and crosswalks making life difficult for wheelchair users. Steet furniture, trees, hydrants and light posts are for some curious reason positioned right in the middle of the sidewalks further complicating life for disabled individuals or anyone trying to push a baby buggy. Bars and restaurants place tables and chairs on public sidewalks with an attitude that it is just an extension of their establishment without any regard whatosoever for pedestrians (with or without handicaps). It appears that the powers that be in City Hall have never heard of audible signals for crosswalk controls since only one of the thousands of traffic signals in Greater São Paulo is so equipped (near Laramara, the Brazilian Association for the Blind), therefore visually impaired pedestrians are left to their own devices in order to cross streets. Thank God that Brazilians are a kindly lot and are more than willing to offer to assist in such situations.

Where are our government leaders (at all levels), watchdog agencies, etc. when we need them? What are they doing to push for improvements? Nothing, nada, rien, zip, zero... that's what.

No, it's not at all easy to live in São Paulo.