Eduardo Paes Quotations

[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.

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

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.

By 2050, seven out of ten people will live in cities, which will account for six billion people living in urban areas. That phenomenon is central to all the challenges humanity faces. If there is an issue to be addressed, then it is certainly happening in cities and therefore must be considered on an urban scale.

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.

In Rio we built a Center of Operations, a situation room that gathers information from municipal departments and allows us to manage and help decision-making. I can check the weather, the traffic and the location of city's waste collection trucks. Each of 4,000 buses in the city has a camera connected to the situation room.

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.

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.

There is no time and space limitation for public accountability on the Internet. Creative commonality is standard and does not resemble the authoritarian style of the dead communist experience. It seems that it is no longer society's obligation to understand legislation; it is a duty for governments to be understood by their people.

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