Two city centres, two politics, two outcomes

Abstract

Rio de Janeiro and Salvador have similar urban histories. Their urban form is much seemed. Today, the two of them are port, tourist, commercial and services cities where nature and urbanity mix themselves in a singular way. Different decisions politics, in the end of the seventies and principles of the eighties, had made that the traditional centers of the two cities had completely antagonistic destinations. While one, Rio, always has preferred to preserve its center as main administrative and business space, beyond historical, the other one, Salvador, has decided to the decentralization and built a new centrality. The results are the opposite. While in Rio, more and more the population of the city has pride of its center and also frequents by night and in the weekends, occupying public and private spaces, in Salvador, the local population moves away from the center, leaving it for the tourists who enchant themselves with the thematic park that reproduces the 18th century city.