ABSTRACT
Brazilians refer to Rio de Janeiro as “Marvelous City,” the name of a Carnival song written in 1935, when the city was the capital of the country. Marvelous city is an expression that extols the beauty and cultural fertility of Rio de Janeiro, the “heart of Brazil” as it is referred to in the song. Popular for decades, the song would become this city’s civic anthem. As the capital was transferred to Brasília in 1960, the city would lose its position as a political center and accordingly suffer the consequences of economic decline. Nonetheless, Rio de Janeiro is still considered the cultural center of the nation, and it is still presented as an area that provides high quality of life. Culture and nature are frequent objects of symbolic investment by the business community and also by Rio natives and local residents, who are referred to as cariocas.
