REVERSAL OF FORTUNES?: SÃO PAULO YOUTH REDIRECT URBAN DEVELOPMENT

Abstract

This article addresses the relationship between space and investment in two forms of popular culture as part of an assessment of urban development in Brazil’s largest city, São Paulo. Through a selected braiding of ethnographic reflections, urban histories, and social theories of speculation, I argue that the youth cultural practices of hip hop and “saraus” or open microphone talent shows have influenced the flows of investment and the social geography of expressive culture in São Paulo. Consequently, the value of the marginalized periphery (“periferia”) has changed and with it the overall conceptualization of São Paulo.