Brasilia is the futuristic capitol of Brazil.  It has been so since 1960 when the federal government moved there from Rio de Janeiro.  I recently spent two days there and it is truly magnificent. It has been a place I have wanted to visit almost my entire life, but more on that later.  First it is important to briefly tell the story of its creation as it is all about vision and how vision can project humanity into the future.

The population of Brazil, since colonization by the Portuguese has always been predominately oriented to the Atlantic coast, where the majority of Brazilians still reside.  The country is the fifth largest in the world in terms of land mass.  In 1823 a statesman named Jose Bonifacio suggested that moving the capitol inland would be a stimulus to the great interior of the country and would also be safer from foreign attack.  He came up with the name Brasilia.  Nothing much came of his efforts until decades later, a priest, living in Italy prophesied that a new civilization would emerge in Brazil between the 15th and 20th parallels.  This caught the attention of Brazil and in the 1891 Constitution, land in the central plateau of Brazil was allocated for the construction of a federal district.  Several legislative directives followed in the decades that followed, but nothing was ever done until a great leader with vision became President.

Juscelino Kubitschek became President in 1955.  During the electoral campaign, he was asked if he would …