ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the author suggests that the ecological restructuring of São Paulo's office-stock is in its status nascendi, an embryonic process. As its area became packed with high-rise buildings by the late 1950s and early 1960s, new developments started to move south, first to Paulista Avenue, on the highest topographical point of the city, afterwards to the Jardins region. Still in the 1960s, service activities started to develop along Faria Lima Avenue, an avenue at the southern edge of the Jardins neighbourhood. Sao Paulo has since then grown at an extraordinary rate, attracting investments into industrial sectors and urban infrastructure, in addition to a strong migratory influx.Sao Paulo's growth into the leading business capital of the Southern Hemisphere started in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Since then, the city has been expanding sharply, a process that has been accompanied by numerous transformations in its physical setting and environment.
