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RECIFE, Brazil — The Brazilian state of Pernambuco was once known for itsvast plains of parched dirt and roving bandits called cangacos, who robbed from the rich and gave to the poor. For later generations, escaping the widespread poverty of thenortheast customarily meant moving to livelier southeastern citieslike Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo, though many migrants still endedup living in favelas , or slums. Today, an economic boom has given locals good reasons to stay put,and large numbers of Brazilians are even making their way north insearch of a better life. The area around Recife, the capital of Pernambuco, has benefitedfrom huge government and business investments such as the expansionof the port of Suape, a new shipyard and an oil refinery project.Government aid has also helped struggling families improve theirlives, which has lessened the need to move elsewhere. In Boa Viagem, a new middle-class neighborhood south of downtownRecife, the signs of change include apartment complexes and chicrestaurants that have sprung up in recent years. "The region is now much more than just big industrial projects,"said Juliana Queiroga, regional coordinator at Endeavor Nordeste, anew northeastern branch of a Sao Paulo-based nongovernmentalorganization that promotes entrepreneurship. "It's a newgastronomic center, a tech center, and there's lots of innovationand international money coming in." In the last 12 years, unemployment in the Recife metropolitan areadropped from about 14% to 6.2%, and the population of the city grew8% to more than 1.5 million during roughly the same period. Thecity has been a beneficiary of the growth that has powered thecountry's economy for a decade and pushed migration into parts ofthe country that had languished for a century. When Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva became president in 2003, he instituted a set of social programsthat predominantly benefited the impoverished northeastern states,which had lost much of their economic relevance of the 19thcentury, when slave plantations were central to the country'sgrowth. As a youth, Lula made the weeks-long journey on the back ofa truck from the woods of Pernambuco to Sao Paulo, where heeventually found a job as a metalworker. The billions of dollars in government investments and projects havemade the northeast — home to nine states and 50 millionpeople — the fastest-growing population center in Brazil'seconomic success story, which recently helped the country overtakeBritain to become the world's sixth-largest economy. The northeast has grown four times as fast as the richer states ofSao Paulo and Rio, said Marcelo Neri, a Brazilian demographicsspecialist. The distribution of wealth has improved across classes, andmillions of people have moved from poverty into the middle class,he said. "This is the first decade in recorded history that net migrationfrom the country to the big cities has basically stopped," Nerisaid. "It's remarkable. This is still a very unequal country, butwe are one of a very few countries these days that can say thatinequality is falling." Some Brazilians are moving around the countryside to take advantageof an agricultural industry that is profiting from selling soybeansand other commodities to China. The related jobs range frombusiness experts familiar with specialized agribusiness techniquesto laborers who hack away brush before seeds are planted. Some Brazilians are moving to newly revitalized urban centers suchas Recife or Fortaleza to work in construction, infrastructure oroil refining. And some are leaving the crime-ridden slums of Riofor jobs in their families' home regions. The balance has shifted so far that many who traditionally wouldhave taken high-paying professional jobs in the southeast areheading to places like Recife instead. Sergio Silvino, a native of Sao Paulo who moved to Recife in 2010,was happily surprised to find a job as an engineer on a hugeconstruction site. "I didn't think there were any opportunities up here. But then Igot wind that there were job openings, and I ended up with aposition that paid much better than I could have gotten in Rio,"Silvino said. "Now I see people here from all over the country, andit's very tough to find anyone without a job." Since President Dilma Rousseff , Lula's handpicked successor, took over in January 2011, growthhas continued apace, surprising many of those who grew up in thearea or arrived more recently. "If you would have asked me at the beginning of my college term, Iwould have said I wanted to leave Pernambuco," said Jorge DiogoSouza Costa, a business student who moved to Recife from a smalltown in the interior of the state so he could attend a decent highschool. "But now I want to stay. We have the refineries, the portprojects, shipbuilding and the pharmaceutical and tech industriesnow. It's just obvious that our time has come." Bevins is a special correspondent. The e-commerce company in China offers quality products such as Other Popular Building Materials , Kitchen Pantry Storage Cabinet, and more. For more , please visit Solid Timber Door today!
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