Is Los Angeles the Rio De Janeiro of the US?

22 comments

1. No, Rio is far far far worse in nearly every way to LA.

2. Uhh, no.

3. Hmmmm, Rio is way more sketchy than LA and has favelas and wars between cartels and police.. but in terms of income inequality and a place that varies street by street… you may have an argument. They both have laid back beach and outdoors cultures too..

4. LA crime rates don’t hold a candle to Rio.

5. I think that is Miami.

6. Miami feels more like Rio than LA does, plus there seems to be more Brazilians there. It’s just missing the mountains.

7. It used to be but today, it’s more chill.

   It’s stratified with picturesque hills and houses surrounded by layers of ugly, compact, and trashy with some touristy areas and a nice beach, so if you want to use that comparison, yea

8. I’d say No. I’ve lived in both and Rio is far, far worse than LA in almost every way. Rio is also absolutely filthy (environmentally speaking), especially the water.

   Another major difference is the topography. Rio is stunning. LA is not.

9. We don’t have a Rio

10. That would probably be New Orleans.

11. 30 years ago you’d slightly be closer to right, in that LA had high crime rates by US standards.

    Today, it’s a far safer place and LA’s not really much above the norm for violent crime in the US, especially if we’re talking among urban areas.

    Rio is pretty much incomparably worse of a place.

12. No city in the US is worse that Rio

13. Based on the news and the anti American propaganda on social media I can see why someone would be afraid of visiting a US city, but it’s actually quite safe almost anywhere here.

14. To be more charitable to Rio (which is a place that I love), LA is also way newer than Rio, so it doesn’t have any of the cool historic architecture that Rio does. There also aren’t any parts of LA that have that classic dense urban feel like Copacabana or the center of Rio do.

15. LA has its issues, but straight up slums governed by cartels aren’t it. Crime like in most big cities in the US is extremely localized to a few areas

16. I wish. It would be a more interesting place if it was.

17. More like a tiny Sao Paulo…

18. They’re both beach cities surrounded by mountains that are the center of their country’s entertainment industries, but the similarities end there. Rio has a big problem with crime, while crime comparatively isn’t that bad in LA (although 1990s rap did put LA crime in the public consciousness).

    Rio is generally misunderstood by Americans, who see it as a beach/party city (with some favelas mixed in). The beach is a huge part of the city. But it’s also a historic, culturally rich city with lots of unique local color. It was one of the largest colonial cities and you’ll find colonial architecture scattered throughout the city. As Brazil’s capital up through the 1950s, it was an important center for the country’s aristocracy during the imperial period and then had a heyday in the first few decades of the 20th century when samba and choro were born. It’s a dense and urbanized megacity; many streets in the Zona Sul will remind you of Manhattan. Unlike other cities of its size that attract lots of transplants, most people there are from there (as is the case elsewhere in Brazil). All this leads to tight-knit working-class neighborhoods which you can see in the city’s music culture, sports culture, and so on. The local accent is extremely distinct, and it’s hard to overstate how important Rio is to Brazilian music. There’s not a great American parallel to all this; New Orleans has some similarities, as do some of the outer-borough neighborhoods in New York. Overall, it’s a very old city whose cultural distinctives have developed over time.

19. “high crime rates” Yeah okay. Rio is a different beast LA is a children’s playground in comparison.

20. It would be Miami but crime would be far less.

21. No, lol.

22. I say New Orleans Louisiana or Miami Florida is the cities most like Rio De Janerio Brazil