Belo Horizonte

Meaning Beautiful Horizon in Portuguese, Belo Horizonte is the capital of Minas Gerais located in the southeast of the country. With a population of 2,375,440 it’s the sixth most populous city in Brazil. However, in the metropolitan region of Greater Belo Horizonte 5,497,922 people reside making it the third biggest urban agglomeration of the country.

There is a big difference between the rich and the poor in Belo Horizonte. There are neighborhoods that have a very high human development index. The neighborhoods of Carmi, Cruzeiro, Anchieta, Funcionários and Sion score higher than Iceland while Serra and São Lucas have the same score as The Netherlands and Japan. But in the poorer hoods the HDI is more in line with for example North African countries.

In 1993 mayor Patrus Ananias de Souza started to innovate the city based on it’s citizens having the “right to food”. These innovations include creating farmers’ markets in the town to enable direct sales and regularly surveying market prices and posting the results across the city. As a result of these innovations the infant mortality rate of the city was reduced with 50% in little over a decade.

Belo Horizonte is home to three professional football teams: América, Atlético Mineiro and Cruzeiro with the latter two being among the most popular teams in the country. The Mineirão Arena is being used during the World Cup and is one of the biggest football stadiums in the world. The stadium opened it’s doors in 1965 and hardly ever changed until Brazil won their World Cup bid and the stadium underwent a large redevelopment. Cruzeiro already agreed on leasing the stadium for the next 25 years, Atlético Mineiro however, has not yet reached an agreement and will keep playing in the smaller Estádio Independência until they agreed one.