[bossabreezes]

I used to live in São Paulo, and these kind of buildings are indeed common.

Brazil is an uber urbanized country. Also, even though Brazil has gotten much safer recently and São Paulo has about the same crime rate as most major US cities (except Chicago), the lifestyle that these high-rises offer is considerably safer than living in a single family home.

Also, most of these buildings are only one apartment per floor and are generally quite large. This attracted the Brazilian middle class. Nowadays, these buildings are less common and we're seeing more ''urban'' style developments with smaller units and larger floor-plates due to the loosened land use laws. Also, São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro have become very expensive cities and economically these skinny towers are less profitable.