[gota]

I don't understand this. Sao Paulo is mostly indistinguishable from any large city in the US. Big concrete-and-glass buildings city centre, lots of traffic-related infrastructure, large swaths of residential areas including richer suburbs and poorer ghettos ('favelas', in Brazil). Are there any large cities that do not conform to this formula?

What are you referring to, specifically?

The only thing that comes to mind are the homeless population, but then again you could say the same problem (and at arguably larger scale) afflicts San Francisco or New York.

Sao Paulo is not even particularly violent, too

[elzbardico]

Downtown São Paulo, or the central zone is a decadent part of the city (think Bronx in 70s). It is overrun with Cracolândia (big gathering of crack addict homeless people). Most foreign people or even Brazilians that go to São Paulo stay only at the nice zones.