[9] Also due to the pole, the city presents high levels of ozone pollution, mainly in the district of Betel and in the Replan region, where companies such as Rhodia, Purina, Shell, Syngenta, and Petrobras are located.
Paulínia is part of the so-called Extended Metropolitan Complex, which exceeds 29 million inhabitants, approximately 75% of the population of the entire state of São Paulo.
The metropolitan regions of Campinas and São Paulo already form the first megalopolis in the southern hemisphere, uniting 65 municipalities that together are home to 12% of the Brazilian population.
At the end of the Empire, as a member of the Republican Party of São Paulo, he was elected an alderman in his hometown, alongside Júlio de Mesquita and Salvador Penteado.
[13] Officially Paulínia was founded on 16 July 1906, by José Seixas de Queiroz; however, the city's anniversary is celebrated on the date the municipality was created, 28 February.
[19] The first urban center in the region of Paulínia was a village called São Bento where, in 1903, a chapel was inaugurated in honor of the same saint, which had begun to be built in 1897, the same year in which the plans and budget for the José Paulino station were approved.
In this context, the producers started to demand from the captaincy of São Paulo the construction of a railroad that would make it possible to transport their production to other centers.
[13] Replan has attracted thousands of immigrants to Paulínia, as well as other companies, which have transformed the town into the largest petrochemical complex in Latin America.
[13] In 2005, Braskem and Petrobras Química S.A. - Petroquisa - set up Petroquímica Paulínia S.A., a joint venture responsible for operating a polypropylene industrial unit in the Replan region.
After this refusal, the company asked the city to pay for the earthmoving, which was also rejected, because Mayor José Pavan Júnior considered that the administration had already spent too much on the project (the donated land was valued at at least R$100 million).
Located in the Peripheral Paulista Depression, in São Paulo, the city borders Cosmópolis (to the north), Campinas (to the southeast), Sumaré (to the south), Nova Odessa (to the southwest), Jaguariúna (to the east), Holambra (to the northeast) and Americana (to the west).
The territory is homogeneous, with great relief variations only in the neighborhoods of Alto de Pinheiros, Vila Nunes, Marieta Dian, Santa Cecília and Tereza Zorzetto Vedovello.
The highest neighborhoods in Paulínia are located in the northern and eastern regions of the city, such as Marieta Dian, São José and Parque das Indústrias.
In the municipality of Americana the river is dammed and the Salto Grande reservoir, as it is known, extends to the São Paulo neighborhoods of Parque da Represa and Balneário Tropical.
The municipality also has several lakes and lagoons, the main ones being Santa Terezinha, Armando Ferreira, Jardim Botânico, José Maria Malavazzi and César Bierrembach.
[48] Due to the low concentration of buildings, heat islands rarely occur, so the thermometers remain below the 40 °C mark in most of the city, even in the hottest months of the year.
The main areas where the vegetation is intact or little altered are located in the neighborhoods of Cascata, Recanto dos Pássaros, Parque Brasil 500, Betel, Planalto and Monte Alegre.
[55] Paulínia is environmentally stressed, which means that it has a vegetation cover of less than 5% of the municipal area, consequently presenting higher risks of flooding,aggradation of water courses, erosion, and disappearance of fauna and flora.
The problems occur mainly due to the lack of culverts and galleries for draining excess water, except in the case of Recanto dos Pássaros, which is affected by the flooding of the Atibaia river.
[87] The Public Ministry has participated in several lawsuits against the city hall and companies, in cases such as Shell's contamination of the Recanto dos Pássaros[88] neighborhood and the construction of a toll road on Professor Zeferino Vaz Highway.
The municipality has few neighborhoods in the rural area, the largest being Recanto das Águas, Bela Vista II, Saltinho and São Bento.
[36] Paulínia is the biggest petrochemical power in Latin America,[99][100][26][7] being home to REPLAN, the biggest Petrobras and Brazilian refinery,[101] besides having countless other establishments and industries in the sector, representing companies such as Transo, Shell, Exxon, Fic, Rhodia,[102] among others, which, attracted by the good infrastructure and by advantages offered by the city hall, such as exemption or reduction in municipal taxes, have settled in the city.
The center is responsible for a good part of the jobs and of the Gross Domestic Product of Paulínia, being one of the main reasons for attracting immigrants to the city.
The virtual library, where the population has free access to the internet, and the Municipal Theater, part of Paulínia's cinematographic pole, are other important tourist attractions.
[124] The electric power is supplied by the company CPFL,[129] which has several distribution centers in neighborhoods such as Cascata, Bela Vista and Santa Terezinha, as well as a substation near the São Francisco farm.
Currently places like Morro Alto and Marieta Dian neighborhoods, as well as São Bento Street, have points of sale and consumption of the drug.
[172] Another choice for leisure and culture is represented by the Municipal Theater of Paulínia, opened on 4 July 2008, built to receive, besides plays, events related to cinema, presentation of dances, besides other shows.
[173] In Paulínia's menu, as well as in a large part of the state, it is common to find rice and beans, the basis of the meals, and steak, chicken, sausage, ground meat, and lettuce and tomato salad as side dishes.
The program, coordinated by Paulínia's Community Action Center (CACO), aims to qualify people, generating work and income through the appreciation of artistic activities.
[26][183] The first is a theater group that performs musicals such as Os Saltimbancos, Para Viver um Grande Amor (with poems from the book of the same name by Vinicius de Moraes) and Roda Viva.