A Capital Becoming a Capital

Carved out of the wilderness 580 miles north of Rio, Brasilia was the creation of President Juscelino Kubitschek, who started building Brazil's new capital in 1957 as one sure way of opening up the country's interior. The "Capital of Hope," he called it. His successors felt no such attachment. Recoiling from the dust, disorder and frontier-town isolation, Janio Quadros called it "the cursed city," spent much of his time huddled in the palace projection room, guzzling Scotch and staring at Liz Taylor movies. Joao Goulart studiously avoided the unfinished capital for months on end. Construction funds dribbled off to practically nothing, and politicians mounted a campaign to move the seat of government back to Rio. But Brasilia stayed alive, and now is sinking roots and beginning to look like a city.

Apartments Wanted. Brasilia started regaining momentum with the revolution that ousted Leftist Goulart 14 months ago and installed Castello Branco in his place. The new President has no love for the raw new city either. As a friend says: "In Rio the President works and rests. In Brasilia he only works." Nevertheless, he seems determined to finish what Kubitschek started. "The consolidation of Brasilia," says Castello Branco, "requires only time and money--mainly money."

So far the revolutionary government has set aside $73.5 million for Brasilia. The biggest need is apartments: more than 10,000 civil servants and their families are still without decent housing. The government is building 2,000 apartment units on its own, has let a contract with private builders for four other 800-apartment "superblocks," and is offering builders a five-year tax holiday if they will put up housing.

View from Rio. To enliven the city's leisure hours, new movies, bowling alleys and a municipal theater are being built; green parks are replacing vacant lots. A fine new hotel rivals anything in Rio, and a 55,000-seat stadium is nearing completion for Brasilia's five professional soccer teams. The biggest push comes from the city folk themselves, who have formed 29 social clubs. "The government built buildings," says Maurice Shashoa, owner of the Terrace Club, "but it didn't make a capital. That's what we're doing now."

Brasilia is still years away from the magnificent capital that Kubitschek envisioned. But the population is up to 330,000 with an- estimate of more than 500,000 by 1985. Today 120 of the Congress' 475 members live permanently in Brasilia instead of commuting from Rio and Sao Paulo. Next year the Brazilian Foreign Office will move to the capital, along with the 69 foreign delegations that now have their embassies in Rio. Other members of Brazil's official family should not be far behind. "I'm finding it increasingly difficult," says one U.S. embassy officer in Rio, "getting hold of politicians down here."

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