About Maringa
Not actually a city but more of a "municipality" in the south of Brazil, Maringa was founded in 1947 as a planned urban area. It's actually the 3rd largest city in the state of Parana with about 385,753 inhabitants, give or take a few, meandering around its streets. In the whole metropolitan area you will have to share space with 764,906 souls, so don't get too comfy in your own space. The town is actually crossed by the Tropic of Capricorn (aka the circle of latitude that is scribbled around the planet denoting the sub solar point on the southern solstice). It's a regional hub for services, agro-industries plus commerce and has plenty of universities thrown into the mix creating streets of tech savvy youth. Coworking has sprung up in the city catering to these brash youthful minds as well as the other locals who don't wish to leave their home-turf to do some work.
The town was planned as a "garden city" from the beginning and it has 3 amazing ecological areas within its urban limits: the Forest Horto, the Park of the Inga and Forest II. Its main income is derived from agriculture, think corn, wheat, cotton, sugar cane and the list goes on, but it's dominated by its coffee. There is also a mixture of segments in the industrial sector such as textile, agribusiness, metal-mechanics and the like. Maringa has a plethora of shopping centers to keep the shopaholics smiling, plenty of cafes and a host of restaurants.
Brazil is Latin America's largest entrepreneurial ecosystem with startups focusing on frontiers, other than their own home ground. The creative locals are competing on a global scale and expanding their companies quickly by exporting their business models to other regional markets around the world, despite their own home ground having a growing middle class with a healthy appetite for social and media consumption. Brazilians are becoming known for bootstrapping early-stage companies, hence the need for more and more coworking spaces to dot city streets.