Uploaded on 2017-01-04 by André Baltazar de Lima Barreto

That’s picture is of my neighborhood, Manaíra, in João Pessoa, Brazil, taken from my apartment. There are a lot of residential towers, a few of them under construction; some single family homes; a public square nearby with some parked cars; a few vehicles passing by on the road and not a single person in the streets. The first thing that can be inferred it’s the verticalization that still happening in this neighborhood, with single family homes being slowly replaced by residential towers. The second one it’s how predominant residential use affects the vitality of the neighborhood. As usual in residential neighborhoods, during the day, there are a few people in the streets because inhabitants are working, studying or shopping in other areas of the city, and at night, people stay at home or go out to restaurants, bars, cinemas, malls and, particularly in João Pessoa, to seashore. Actually, it seems paradoxical there be so few people in the streets in areas with so many residents. So, it shows how necessary are mixed use neighborhoods to increasing the vitality of the streets and, consequentially, its safety, because with more people passing by, there would be more “eyes on the street”.