Teresina Town of Towers welcomes the Minha Casa Minha Vida Programme

The city of Teresina has the distinction of being the only State capital (of Piaui state in this case) in the North East which is not actually situated on the Atlantic coast. In fact this city of 800,000 people is well inland, about 350 Km from the ocean. It is younger than many other Brazilian towns and cities. Teresina was only founded in 1852, as a planned city (the first planned city in the country). It originally had a different name, Vila Nova do Poty (in English 'New Town of Poty'...referring to the Poty River). Later in the century the settlement was renamed Teresina in honour of the wife of Pedro II the Emperor of Brazil, the Empress Teresa Cristina, the town is now seeing an increased from international investors keen to further develop the city and surrounding areas.

Teresina was (and still is) the naturally hottest city in Brazil and one of the two or three most lighting-prone places on earth. The geography of the district is influenced by its location in a transition zone between the Amazon rainforest and the north-eastern plains. Both scrub coverage and distribution of mid-size trees are plentiful. The overall climate is tropical with just two main seasons per year, the wet and the dry. Temperature range in Teresina is from 20 degrees C up to 35, with an average of 27 making it ideal for urban development.

The economy of the city is currently based on the processing and/or manufacturing of a number of products. These include chemicals and pharmaceuticals, ceramics, furniture, bicycles and soft drinks (to name but a few). The building and construction industry has also surged in the last couple of decades, as can be seen by the large number of high-rise buildings in the downtown or city-centre areas. For this reason it has the nickname of 'Town of Towers' (or at least the Portuguese equivalent of the title). Construction in and around the city continues to this day as the city catches the attention of foreign investors and developers.

This especially-designed inland city has two features that are immediately obvious to visitors. One is the logical grid system of the city centre. The other is related, it's the presence of the many thousands of mango and other trees which line the streets, giving the whole place a very 'green' feel. In addition, locals and visitors alike love the fact that Teresina is one of the 'safest' urban centres in Brazil, with rates of crime well under the national average making it very popular with overseas investors. Teresina is not just the capital of Piaui state but almost completely dominates it, not just administratively but economically and culturally too. Not only is forty percent of the state's GDP dependant on the capital but it's also very much the hub of musical and entertainment aspects too. You can access a blog about this by clicking on the translatable site Agenda Cultural Teresina.

Every year in the summer the city hosts 'Encontro Nacional de Folguedos'. This is Brazil's national festival of folklore and is a highly-prestigious celebration of Culture, Music, Dance and Food from right across the country. All these features of this vibrant and unusual city make the place highly unique and interesting in many ways. Needless to say, this growing metropolis provides an attractive option for those considering short term property investment, as there is an abundance of land ideally located for housing developments, this has attracted a number of property developers from both Brazil and overseas who are prepared to build minha casa minha vida housing developments in the area, both locals and city officials have welcomed this news and many outsiders wishing to safely invest in Brazil have also shown a keen interest in these future social housing developments.