Prototropic 0.1: Honolulu and Rio

D. What are some of the biggest challenges facing Rio today?
R. Providing all residents the same rights to the city, proper infrastructure to allow for a healthy urban life.
From quality of education and health care to generous public spaces and quality of infrastructure which can
attend to all equally, independent of location (be it the suburbs, the city center, the post-card neighborhoods
of the South Zone and the more than one thousand favelas spread throughout the city).
D. I think the growing income inequality which often directly translates to inequality in many outlets of the
city you mentioned, is the epitome of our age. Do you think these challenges can ever be resolved?
R. Certainly. What has been happening in the past decade or so in Brazil is exactly a great shift towards more
equality, while in the US it is going in the opposite direction, the gap between rich and poor is increasing.
D. I remember hearing about a colleague who was working in Mexico and she mentioned that she would do
most of her work at local Starbucks because it was the only place near her apartment that had access to the
internet. That brought up an interesting instance of how large scale infrastructural need such as access to
the internet is met through globalization. Do you see this effect of globalization happening in Rio and is it
mitigating/effecting the challenges of infrastructure in any way?
R. In Brazil, internet access is not associated with global chains such as Starbucks. Internet access is wide
spread here (even though services are expensive and not that reliable) and the use of smart phones is a fast
growing market with more and more people having internet access through their cellphone.
Shores of Ipanema