Eduardo Paes Quotes

#1. Rio will have to look after the legacy of infrastructure. But it's unclear who will run the sports centres after the Olympics.

Eduardo Paes

#2. Every time you think of a city, you have to think green, green, green. Every time you see concrete jungle, you must find open spaces. And when you find open spaces, make it so people can get to them.

Eduardo Paes

#3. I really do believe that mayors have the political position to really change people's lives.

Eduardo Paes

#4. Civil movements and riots are as old as human civilization. Long before Twitter was created, mobilization of the discontented was mouth-to-mouth, or even by 'smoke signals' to gather the uprising against established political power.

Eduardo Paes

#5. Smart cities are those who manage their resources efficiently. Traffic, public services and disaster response should be operated intelligently in order to minimize costs, reduce carbon emissions and increase performance.

Eduardo Paes

#6. You cannot deal with a city if it's not socially integrated.

Eduardo Paes

#7. Rio's a beautiful city, a vibrant place, special place.

Eduardo Paes

#8. The digital revolution has deepened the crisis within representative democracy. But as it forces its demise, it might also dictate its future. Traditional representative democracy within nations is no longer enough. People want more participation and collaboration with their government.

Eduardo Paes

#9. President Obama is the best-known politician to be exploring the possibilities of new technologies to converse with the people. Others must follow his lead and innovate. It is inevitable.

Eduardo Paes

#10. I strongly believe being mayor is the public post in which you have the greatest opportunity to change peoples' lives for the better. People live in cities, not states or nations. As a mayor, you are connected directly to citizens.

Eduardo Paes

#11. Rio is an energetic, vibrant place, full of beauty and nature. But we face the kinds of problems any developing metropolis does - with pollution, traffic congestion, poverty. Distribution of green areas, for example, is not uniform. Madureira, the heart of the suburb in Rio, is a concrete jungle.

Eduardo Paes

#12. I have the best job in the world. I wake up every morning energized at the thought of running Rio de Janeiro, the most exciting city on the planet.

Eduardo Paes

#13. Elected representatives are so embedded in the basic notion of what constitutes a democratic nation that it has become indistinguishable from any other form of democratic governance.

Eduardo Paes

#14. Don't ever in your life do a World Cup and the Olympic Games at the same time. This will make your life almost impossible.

Eduardo Paes

#15. When Seoul hosted the Games in 1988, it became a symbol of the Asian Tigers' ascent onto the world stage. In 1992, the Barcelona Olympics represented the unification of Europe. And when Rio plays host in 2016, it will reinforce the growing importance of Brazil and Latin America as a whole.

Eduardo Paes

#16. There is no time and space in the digital world. People chat and collaborate through social networks. Cultural icons garner millions of fans online in locations they have often never been themselves. The boundary between public and private life is now everyone's business.

Eduardo Paes

#17. In Rio, 1.4 million of the 6.3 million people live in favelas, or slums. They are all over the city, but favelas are not always a problem - sometimes they can be a solution, if you have the right public policies.

Eduardo Paes

#18. I don't want to compare my city to Zurich; thank God we're not that boring. Rio is advancing fast, but we're at a different phase in our civilization.

Eduardo Paes

#19. Google is omniscient of what people search for and do. Facebook has over a billion subscribers, meaning Mark Zuckerberg has personal information about one in every seven people on Earth. U.S.A., Brazil, Mexico, India and Indonesia are at the top of that list.

Eduardo Paes

#20. Favelas [slums] are not always a problem. Favelas can sometimes really be a solution.

Eduardo Paes

#21. It's a difficult task to deal with cities. But with some original ways of getting things done, with some basic commandments, you can really get cities to be a great, great place to live.

Eduardo Paes

#22. Political movements and mega sporting events have always gone hand in hand. In 1980, there were Cold War boycotts in Moscow and again in 1984 during Los Angeles Games.

Eduardo Paes

#23. [At] the end of the day, when we talk about cities, we talk about a gathering of people. And we cannot see that as a problem.

Eduardo Paes

#24. The city of the future is a city that cares about its citizens and integrates its citizens.

Eduardo Paes