Pedestrians visiting the city need to take deep breaths. The scale is monumental and places are very far one from another. There are no sidewalks, only roads and fields, and even when using public transportation it’s necessary to walk to reach a destination. Although filled with great architecture, the city has a monotonous character, maybe for the lack of typical crowds on the streets or in the town centers.
     Many architects (including Niemeyer himself) have criticized the way the city was managed, specifically how densely it was occupied, and how numerous gated communities were created within the city’s public areas. But the key problem isn’t really how the city was managed, but how it was conceived. The master plan for Brasilia, the Pilot Plan, was designed in a closed manner and realized without incorporating the possibility, or desire, for growth. The forms of its structure are so strong that the city has become crystallized, and can’t be altered without spoiling the designer’s original vision.
     During Brasilia’s construction, in the late 1950s, thousands of workers from around the country traveled there to collaborate. Workers and their families lived in temporary dormitories, but after the city was completed the same people who built the city weren’t allowed to live there. Those who wanted to remain began to form communities located around the Pilot Plan. These grew in a disorientated way, just like any communities without planning, and today the perimeter of the Pilot Plan is occupied by these ever growing and undesired “satellite cities”.