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INEQUALITY

How Brazil's segregated cities tax themselves into weakness

Rocinha, Rio de Janeiro's largest favela, with the affluent Zona Sul behind it. Photo: Donatas Dabravolskas/Shutterstock

Ask a small-business owner in a low-income São Paulo neighborhood how long City Hall would take to fill a pothole on their street, and the average answer is 23.5 days. Ask the same person how long the repair would take in a wealthier district a few kilometers away, and the estimate drops to roughly five days — a perceived gap of nearly 19 days.

That perceived gap, drawn from…

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