At the beginning of the 20th century, Georg Simmel published one of his most important and well-known texts, "The metropolis and mental life". He focused on the changes he observed in the relationship between spatial configuration and society (and other forms of sociability) within the urban landscape of the emerging big cities (or metropolises), namely, Berlin at the turn of the 19th century. When he published his essay in 1903, the metropolis was a recent occurrence signaling the beginning of a new urban phenomenon. It was brought about by the advances of industrialization and capitalism which, subsequently, would permanently change the physical configuration of cities and alter their economic, social and cultural significance. Simmel lived through Berlin's great transformations from the second half of the 19th century onward and he described the birth of the modern city with singular clarity, seeking to demonstrate how the make-up of the big city would radically transform the relationship between individuals and society. In the modern metropolis, the accelerated flow of information and activities - in synchronicity with the mechanic speed of the industrial revolution - would increase the pace of individuals. The result was the development of social relations which were less reliant on traditional historical or cultural codes of behavior. Simmel called this behavior "blasé"; it distanced citizens from the associations and obligations which are characteristic of social relationships in small towns. Within the rationale of modern capitalism, this type of behavior increased human productive efficiency in the urban environment. Furthermore, given the diversity clearly in evidence in big cities, the rules for controlling groups of citizens were diluted, resulting in greater individual freedom and conducts which diverged from conventional behavior.

Simmel's writings greatly influenced much of the theoretical production of the 20th century in urbanism and urban sociology, in particular, derivations of his theories developed by the Chicago School in the United States. In Brazil, his influence is felt in the authors who formulated the so-called "Brazilian explanations" of the 1930s. For example, Gilberto Freyre and Sergio Buarque de Holanda, who are indispensable for understanding the make-up of a Brazil striving to become a modern nation.

A century after its initial publication, the interest in Georg Simmel's work seems not to have abated. For example, relatively recently, David Frisby and Mike Fatherstone translated some of Simmel's most significant texts into English, published in a book entitled "Simmel on Culture" (1). In this publication, Frisby and Fatherstone complement these translations with critical essays and show that current readings of Simmel's work seek new interpretations regarding the troubled relations between man and the contemporary metropolis.

Of course, the 21st century metropolis differs from Berlin in the 1900s. Nevertheless, they share economic, social and cultural structures, as well as new forms of representation, production and subjectivation - some of which articulate the ideas of a real urban space and an unreal urban space.  The aim of this essay is to reflect on the current relations between the real and unreal urban space in the biggest Brazilian metropolis: São Paulo.