Brazil's Future Town

Brasilia is a new town created by visionary architect, Lucio Costa, who around 1956 was given the go ahead to build the new socialist capital of Brazil, by the president of Brazil, Juscelino Kubitschek De Oliveira (President of Brazil 1956–61). This new town spread out a like a bird across the plains at a site that was miles from the nearest city. It was revolutionary because the apartments that line its central road, were designed so that someone at the top society could live next door to someone at the bottom of society. It was supposed to disperse people evenly, so that poor neighbourhoods wouldn't develop and richer neighbourhoods would not become isolated from the others.

The city of Brasilia was first thought to trace its conception back to the Brazilian saint, Dom Bosco who on August 30, 1883, had a dream of a city there at the site, where he is buried, and where Brasilia now stands. He says " Between parallels 15 and 20 there was a long and wide depression, in the vicinity of a lake. Thus spoke a voice, over and over again: "... when they come to explore the riches buried in these mountains, here will rise the promised land of milk and honey, of inconceivable wealth..."

This is made as the first real beginnings of the capital which was built 73 years later. However, the reason why I bring it up here, is that the socialist vision ultimately failed when the socialist government was ousted a few years after the city was completed. It has meant that with the ensuing capitalist government, the poor did indeed end up in shanty towns a few miles out of Brasilia, having to take long journeys into the city to service the rich who now occupy the best apartments along its wide boulevard. I think, for Future Towns, which shares the idea of dispersing the classes so that patches of wealth and protected 'gated' communities, and patches of poverty and crime, don't build up. Brasilia, sadly now has satellite towns, which are unplanned and very poor indeed. Exactly the opposite of Costa's vision. In order for social equity to exist outside of one town and without having to bus in labour to better towns, leaving the unprotected normal towns outside of the system, it is indeed necessary to build more Future Towns instead. Ideally, it is my intention that a Future Town should have as much of its labour, skilled and unskilled in the town to begin with. If the socialist vision of Costa at Brasilia was to work, the Brasilian government would have had to build more planned towns to cope with the inevitable rise in population, as people naturally migrate to capitals, to have grievances aired, to seek wealth, recognition or power or to search for employment. So my question is and should be, will a Future Town within a free market be able to support unskilled labour within its boundaries? It should do this, if the build up of shanties servicing the town are to be avoided.