We are grateful to everyone whose ideas and opinions made our weeklong in São Paulo series richer. Here are some of the thoughts – and criticisms – you shared

“It is a great white concrete dream, or nightmare,” wrote Patrick Semple, a Guardian Cities reader, of São Paulo, his home since February. “It is a fabulous party, infuriating and starkly beautiful. It is more expensive than London, yet people can get by on the street.

“It is noisy, all the time: the school day starts at half-past six, the bars close at 3am, music is as ubiquitous as the car fumes. The roads are ruinous. When it rains, rivers erupt in the gutters; when it’s hot they fill up with people. From high up, the city at night looks like God’s chandelier has just crashed to earth.”

São Paulo 'exclusively for business, by business' at expense of urban poor Read more

Semple wrote to us a few months ago, to tell us what we could expect of Brazil’s largest city. This week we experienced it ourselves, in all its complex concrete glory – well, some of it. As Erzsebet Mangucci, 80, who immigrated to Brazil from Hungary when she was nine years old, wrote to us to say: “You don’t actually live in the city of São Paulo. Even after 70 years, you live in a very small piece of it.”

We are grateful to everyone who has engaged with our journalism and our journalists, from São Paulo and afar, in person in the Copan building on Thursday night and on social media at #GuardianSaoPaulo. You have been incredibly generous with your knowledge, ideas, opinions and time, and it has made our reporting better and richer.

Here we share an edited selection of the responses we’ve received. Particular thanks must go to Paulistanos for sharing your city with us.

Essa semana está acontecendo o #GuardianSaoPaulo do @guardiancities mostrando reportagens, eventos, histórias e lindas fotos da cidade. Tive o prazer de ajudar na curadoria de algumas fotos e fotógrafos que retratam o cotidiano de SP e com certeza vem muita coisa legal por ai, vale a pena acompanhar esse lindo trabalho! Catedral da Sé by @miguelitogarcia 🚩 #saopaulocity #EuVivoSP #GuardianCities A post shared by São Paulo City • Miguel Garcia (@saopaulocity) on Nov 27, 2017 at 6:29am PST

‘The dichotomy of ultra-rich or miserably poor is not true’

A common misconception of São Paulo is that people are either super poor and live in favelas, or they are super wealthy and fly in helicopters. I am a middle-class Paulistana who worked hard to go to university and worked hard after that to get a job overseas, in London.

It has always been difficult to explain where I come from; that São Paulo has many middle-class neighbourhoods with people living normal lives like those of the middle-class in Europe or the US; that the dichotomy of ultra- rich or miserably poor is not true.

This difficulty comes of the middle class being ignored by international media, except when they protest loud enough. It would only be fair to Paulistanos that São Paulo be given a more balanced treatment, reflective of the city’s complex reality. Anonymous

Facebook Twitter Pinterest “A city of smoke, city of concrete – and yet there is hope,” wrote student Isabela Chan, who took this photograph of blossoms reaching towards the sun from the roof of the Copan building. “In the background, a myriad of buildings appear to be part of a natural landscape, showing how nature coexists with this megalopolis.” Photograph: Isabela Chan

‘São Paulo’s middle class is what makes it a great city’

On the report by Leonardo Sakamato – a reporter who uses statistics from Movimento dos Trabalhadores Sem Teto (Homeless Workers’ Movement) is a reporter who has not checked their sources properly. MTST is a political movement. If there is one thing they don’t care about, it is the living conditions of poor people. MTST is deeply connected to the Partido dos Trabalhadores (Workers’ Party) – they only invade land that will cause an political impact.

The picture drawn by Sakamoto is definitely not accurate. OK, São Paulo has inequalities, but it is not as described. There are lots of middle-class neighbourhoods – it is not just extra-rich versus extra-poor. This is what makes São Paulo a great city. If this reporter has this view of São Paulo, I wonder what he has to say about Rio de Janeiro or Salvador. Luiza Manguino

‘São Paulo is not making any strides towards prosperity for all’

‘Favela fires are the failure of the government’

I’m a documentary maker from São Paulo. I made a feature film about fires in the favelas. Those that are more frequently destroyed by fire are closer to the centre of the city, where the land is more densely occupied, and worth more. These communities are frowned upon, both because residents fear that slums will result in more crime in the neighbourhood and bring down the values of their homes. It’s the very old-fashioned prejudice of rich folk everywhere against the poor. In São Paulo, it means the favelas do not evolve beyond dwellings made mostly of cardboard and wood.

Slums further away from the city centre become more urbanised over time, and are made of brick and cement and as such less susceptible to fire. This is the social mechanism at work in this correlation between land value and fire. What sparks the fire is not all that relevant – most are caused by accidents or electrical short circuits. The real question is why these people were allowed to live in homes made of flammable material for so long, with no action from the authorities to prevent fire. This is why the “government finds no link”, as you reported. It’s the failure of the government that these communities remain in misery. Conrado Ferrato

‘Favela fires cannot be investigated in a broken system’

‘Working for the city, we struggle with political interference’

I work for São Paulo City Hall as a planning permission and licensing inspector. We try to work in the middle of corruption, inefficiency and a lot of political interference. In my opinion, unauthorised developments on conservation areas in the city’s periferia is a serious problem. Sometimes the real estate “entrepreneurs” are protected by city councillors and possibly criminal organisations.

I used to work in one of the most violent neighbourhoods in São Paulo, the notorious Jardim Ângela, and I would have a feeling of impotence when I saw the illegal development on land close to the Guarapiranga Reservoir. If we have that kind of problem in the richest city of the country, I can’t imagine what is going on in the Brazilian Amazon.



Finally, I would like to say that I respect the protest housing movement, even though I represent law enforcement. São Paulo has a very progressive master plan and zoning code, but fewer than 500 inspectors to control more than 11m inhabitants and 1521 sq km.

We have good news as well. I am part of a group that has been developing a system for the inspectors, and since August, we have gone from paper fines to digital, bringing transparency to the municipality. But with all this technology, we still struggle with political interference and lack of inspectors. Ana Carolina Adriano

‘Drug addiction is perpetuated by public policy’

‘What is Sampa other than perpetual change?’

Marcelo (@oo99988ik) Protestants here are highly motivated are mostly rightwing. That can explain many things that have being happening lately, from impeachment of the last President to the "culture wars" very well covered by The Guardian's recent article. #GuardianSaoPaulo

Marcelo (@oo99988ik) Sampa is such a mix of peoples and cultures that in the last 2 decades we changed our religion from overwhemingly catolic to mostly protestant. It made us more conservstive but may have good sides too. #GuardianSaoPaulo