The New Shop Economy

Today, I went to Santo Amaro, in the Southern part of the city.  Many consider this part of the city the periphery, even though it's fairly well-served by public transit (I arrived by subway) and it's bustling with stores.  I was on my way to the sub-prefeitura (neighborhood council?, literally the city hall for the subsection of the city), but I managed to snap a few shops of the insane number of clothing shops that I passed in the two blocks between the subway and the sub-prefeitura.

These shops, the aesthetics of mass produced undies, shoes, and jeans are not new by any means.  But their quantity, to me, seems kind of unprecedented.  Perhaps enough of a quantitative shift to constitute a qualitative shift.  These are the kinds of goods, or this is the kind of economy, that many say are undergirding the unseasonable prolonged growth of the Brazilian economy.  The increased purchasing power of the Brazilian working and lower-middle class, financed by Lula welfare-state reforms, is increasingly demanding cheap goods that would have been considered luxuries a generation ago.  These items are flooding in through ever-increasing trade with China.  These two factors, increasing lower-middle class consumption and an economy increasingly linked with China and Russia and not the U.S. and Europe, is sustaining Brazil in the midst of world economic crisis.

It is highly ironic that many of the São Paulo elite and middle classes avoid such neighborhoods as "dirty"and "dangerous." On top of being extremely prejudice and factually incorrect, such a viewpoint denies the reality that these neighborhoods and economies are responsible for Brazil's current economic mini-miracle.  And they are some of the only (or last) places in São Paulo where the commons function.  While grabbing a kibe (middle eastern beef roll that has become as Paulistano as...pizza) at the local snack bar, I was talking with a guy who lives in Moema (a very well-to-do neighboorhood in the region), but prefers to hang out in Santo Amaro.  To him, Moema always seems empty.  No one is on the street.  All one sees are cars leaving their high-rise garages.  These are the high security neighborhoods that Teresa Caldeira discusses in City of Walls.  But Santo Amaro is bustling.  At noon, it teems with people eating and shopping on the streets.  And that is why this guy comes here to hang out and drink a beer.

Ok, some photos.

Torsoless mannequins and bored retail workers.

Piles and piles of underwear.

 More here...For a Woman thinking really hard about shoes, follow the jump!

This picture does a poor job in showing just how far back this shopping arcade goes.

This does a better job of showing, piles of clothes that go on for forever.

This is my favorite picture.  The wonderment of shoes.  And why are they encased in glass?

I arrive at my destination.  the Homophobia Out of Fashion Exhibit at the local neighborhood council.

With the banner askew.