This article is taken from the summer 2025 issue of Dazed. Buy a copy of the magazine here.

If Jackson Pollock had been asked to draw up a metropolitan grid, it might look like the streets of São Paulo – they hum and collide like no other city. Actor and model Samantha Müller (29), journalism student Maísa Pastore (23), DJ and music impresario Teiú (21) and wrestler Vinicius Joaquim (25) are strangers among the city’s nearly 23 million people, but they each understand its uniquely chaotic time signature. “Being young in São Paulo is challenging because when we speak about São Paulo, we talk about an accelerated city that doesn’t stop,” says Joaquim. “This means we must always be in synchronicity with its movement if we want to develop ourselves.”

Like many young São Pauloans, both Joaquim and Pastore took long commutes into the city as teenagers to develop their careers. Pastore, who hails from Aprazível in São Paulo state’s countryside, had heard a lot about the energy of the city centre, years before she enrolled at Mackenzie Presbyterian University in downtown São Paulo to study journalism. “[I heard things like], ‘São Paulo is so dangerous that you can’t even go outside.’ [Yet] it’s a world of discoveries where you’ll find your own path,” she says.

The stats that proliferate in the media certainly indicate high crime rates (in April 2024 alone, there was an average of 20 mobile phone thefts an hour), but how do they stack against the reality of life in the city today? “After five years of living here, I realised that São Paulo fits both descriptions,” says Pastore. “As a woman, I’m afraid to walk alone due to the muggings and violence. The city is a diverse cultural centre where we can visit museums, go to parties and eat at restaurants, [but] there are complexities.”

[The city] teaches me a lot about how to act on the streets, and many things that only those who grew up here would understand

Teiú grew up in São Paulo’s neon-lit centre. “I’ve dealt with many corners of this city, all sorts of people and realities. So it has been – and still is – a very interesting experience that teaches me a lot about how to enter, how to leave, how to act on the streets and many things that only those who grew up here will understand,” he says. “But in all this time living here I never stopped to think about it.”

“Being young in São Paulo allows you to find the different,” adds Müller, who had a supporting role in Halder Gomes’s 2022 drama Vermelho Monet (Red Monet) alongside Fantastic Beasts’ Maria Fernanda Cândido. She was born and raised in Rio Grande do Sul state, and came to work and live in the city at the age of 18. “Different cultures, different perspectives. At the same time, you discover more about yourself. São Paulo is plural. It offers the perfect opportunity for those who want to belong to something.”

Wading into the city at such an early age is a significant undertaking. Although there was a decline in theft, robbery and attempted murder from August 2023 to 2024 according to the state Public Security Secretariat, occurrences of rape, homicide and robbery rose. “Violence against women in São Paulo, much like in many other big cities around the world, is an issue we can never [ignore],” says Pastore. “I’ve heard female friends’ stories of harassment or disturbance on public transport while going to college, and people around them did nothing. It is necessary to have societal collaboration so we can always denounce it; access to justice isn’t always easy or fast, and fear and the lack of social support perpetrate aggression cycles.”

São Paulo is plural. It offers the perfect opportunity for those who want to belong to something

Though the walls of buses and trains are lined with cautionary images of abuse victims and helpline numbers, the general feeling is that in order to survive, women must rely on each other. “São Paulo is an important centre of feminist activism in Brazil,” says Müller. “As a woman, I feel that this change comes from the strength of the grassroots movement – from its core, from other women. Your perspective is heightened by the embrace of this group. Outside of this spot, I feel vulnerable.”

DIY youth culture and the free resource of the imagination are both tools young people can use to fight injustice in Brazil. Teiú also uses them to build a profile and rise above the noise. He was already making international headlines when he was 13 years old and today represents a renewed energy for rave culture in São Paulo. “I was heavy in the nightlife scene during my teenage years and it has everything to offer here – sometimes even more than expected,” says the promoter, who founded the experimental labels Ellös and 2 Step Mafia Brasil, the latter considered the beating heart of Brazil’s new underground UK garage scene. “Growing up as a DJ living in downtown São Paulo, I had a lot of access to parties and met many people, some that I really admired or who inspired me in some way; I saw the town’s true colours, its good and bad sides, its many delights and dangers. Now that I’m older, I have a more professional view of the night.”

In the worlds of fashion and acting, Müller has seen a positive shift towards diversification. Despite this, she is aware of the issues impacting the young and vulnerable. “Safety, mobility, representation and accessibility, among other matters, need to be debated for the city to be more inclusive and to ensure that everybody has better living conditions,” she says. According to the 2024 Inequality Map, citizens in the affluent central neighbourhood of Jardim Paulista live 23 years longer than those on the outskirts in Anhanguera, while the Brazilian Observatory of Public Policies for the Homeless Population recorded 139,799 unhoused people in the city in December 2024, an increase of 30.8% on the previous year. Racism is considered a crime in Brazil, and between 2020 and 2024, the number of police reports filed for racist crimes quadrupled.

Being young [here] is challenging because when we talk about São Paulo, we talk about a city that doesn’t stop

“São Paulo is marked by enormous inequality; we can see that just by going from one neighbourhood to another,” says Pastore. “I’m very saddened to see what goes on in the city as I like it so much,” says Teiú. “It brings me a lot of anger when I see so many people living on the streets, inequality increasing, and gentrification and appropriation – particularly downtown, where I live – growing over time while many folks don’t see or choose to ignore it.” These conflicts have been leading to societal polarisation for the last decade, says Pastore: “When I came here in 2021, I noticed that ideological differences were becoming more evident, and people who have to interact with those of divergent opinions are having a stressful time,” she says.

“I come from a family where my father is from Pernambuco [a state in north-eastern Brazil], my mother is from São Paulo and my grandparents are from Bahia,” says Joaquim. “Adding to that, I choose to be an athlete, and sport leads you to practise with a vast array of racial, cultural and even political diversity, be it in São Paulo or [wherever]. Sport has taught me to ‘respect to be respected’, and this saying fits in São Paulo, in Brazil or in any other country.”

It’s not all hopeless – and there was a hum of optimism in our conversations about the public sector in São Paulo, and where tax money is spent. Joaquim, for one, is thankful for the public funding that provided his first aeroplane ride to the Jogos Escolares da Juventude (Youth School Games) in north-eastern Brazil. Pastore also feels that her journalistic future resides in the city and sees the profession as a way to improve it: “Journalism helps citizens better understand the local scenario and the issues that affect their lives, making them better prepared to take an active part and make informed decisions.”

“I believe that new generations and technology can promote more progress,” says Joaquim, looking to the future of his adopted hometown. “When we understand that the city is a means for developing ourselves, progress will be much more visible.”