After decades spent in thrall to the car, which brought it epic traffic jams across an ever-expanding urban sprawl, the Brazilian city of São Paulo has finally decided to try something different.

Fernando Haddad, the mayor of this metropolis of nearly 12 million people, is undertaking sweeping reform of the city’s approach to planning with the goal of increasing urban density along metro,train, and bus corridors. This objective is at the heart of São Paulo’s most radical strategic master plan in decades, with a bold prioritization of public over private transport in the citadel of Brazil’s powerful motor industry.