São Paulo, and Brazil more broadly, are near the top of my list of places that I want to visit. 

Starting in the 1930s, Brazil became an early adopter of modern architecture with projects like the Ministry of Education and Health Building. It was one of the first countries outside of Europe to push modernism.

So I am overdue for a tour of Oscar Niemeyer and Lucio Costa’s work.

Here is a short 7 minute video from Monocle about some of the ways in which São Paulo is reinventing its city center.

It is for the launch of their new book, The Monocle Guide to Building Better Cities, and it got me excited about visiting the city (and country) sometime soon.

Last year Nolan Gray mapped out “the cities of the world where you don’t need AC or heat.” And just recently he updated his data with the help of Guardian Cities for their “sweltering cities” series. As part of the study, they projected out average temperatures, in both the summer and winter, to 2059, showing which cities may become more dependent on air conditioning. The answer looks to be many.

In his original study, Gray had 9 climatic categories, all of which were based on average high and low temperatures throughout the year. Category 1 was you definitely don’t need AC or heat. These cities are essentially perfect year round. And category 9 was you definitely need heat and AC. These cities are basically the worst places on earth to occupy from a climate perspective.

Here is that climate classification system in lovely chart form (note his caption):

The climatic utopias ended up being places like Bogotá, Guatemala City, Lima, Mexico City, San Diego, São Paulo, and Sydney. The worst places were the southeastern United States, Central Asia, and northern East Asia.

But one factor that is not included in the study is humidity, which Gray rightly points out has a meaningful impact on comfort. Toronto, for example, is classified in his system as category 7. Heat needed. But AC definitely not needed. Personally, I would bump us up to category 8: AC preferred, but not needed.

Still, this is an interesting study. There are relatively few cities with so-called perfect climates. And I have always found these sorts of climates fascinating because they empower a very different kind of relationship to outside spaces.

Monocle’s annual survey of the top 25 most liveable cities in the world was just released. It’s now in its 10th year. I found it in my inbox this morning and it was a good reminder that it was about time I renewed my subscription. I’ve been a regular reader of Monocle since 2007, but I let my membership lapse last year.

Of course, any sort of list like this is going to be subjective. It all depends on the methodology you use. Still, their annual survey is an interesting way to see what each city is up to and where the tides are going. This year Monocle put extra weighting on each city’s nightlife. If you’re not a subscriber, here’s a short video you can watch. It will give you a rundown of all the cities. (I was happy to see Montréal creep onto the list. Incredible city.)

This focus on the night is something that I’ve been writing about a lot both on this blog and elsewhere. It’s an idea that’s picking up momentum around the world as an economic development strategy. But for whatever reason, uptake seems to be slower here in North America.

I like how architect Anna Dietzsch puts it in this video. She says that Rio may have the beaches, but Sao Paulo (where she’s based) has the night. That’s exactly how cities should be thinking about this opportunity. It used to be that cities thrived almost entirely because of location, waterways, transport, and other natural features (example: Buffalo). But increasingly, it’s becoming about things like nightlife.

Vancouver may have the mountains, but Toronto has…

Image: Monocle