Porto Alegre vs Knoxville

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Porto Alegre (UK: , US: , local Portuguese: [ˈpoɾtu aˈlɛɡɾi] (listen); lit. '"Joyful Harbor"') is the capital and largest city of the Brazilian state of Rio Grande do Sul. Its population of 1,481,019 inhabitants (2016) makes it the twelfth most populous city in the country and the centre of Brazil's fifth largest metropolitan area, with 4,405,760 inhabitants (2010). The city is the southernmost capital city of a Brazilian state.Porto Alegre was founded in 1769 by Manuel Jorge Gomes de Sepúlveda, who used the pseudonym José Marcelino de Figueiredo to hide his identity; but the official date is 1772 with the act signed by immigrants from the Azores, Portugal. The vast majority of the population is of European descent. The city lies on the eastern bank of the Guaíba Lake (usually referred by the city population as Guaíba River), where five rivers converge to form the Lagoa dos Patos (Lagoon of the Ducks), a giant freshwater lagoon navigable by even the largest of ships.

This five-river junction has become an important alluvial port as well as a chief industrial and commercial center of Brazil. In recent years, Porto Alegre hosted the World Social Forum, an initiative of several non-government organizations. The city became famous for being the first city that implemented participatory budgeting. The 9th Assembly of the World Council of Churches was held in Porto Alegre in 2006. Since 2000, Porto Alegre also hosts one of the world's largest free software events, called FISL. The city was one of the host cities of the 2014 FIFA World Cup, having previously been a venue for the 1950 FIFA World Cup. In the middle of 2010s, Porto Alegre had a growing wave of violence, being ranked as 39th among the world's 50 most violent cities in 2017. Nevertheless, the number of violent crimes has been dropping steadily since 2018.

Source: Wikipedia

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Knoxville is a city in, and the county seat of, Knox County in the U.S. state of Tennessee. As of July 1, 2019, Knoxville's population was 187,603, making it the largest city in the East Tennessee Grand Division, and the state’s overall third largest city after Nashville and Memphis. Knoxville is the principal city of the Knoxville Metropolitan Statistical Area, which had an estimated population of 869,046 in 2019.First settled in 1786, Knoxville was the first capital of Tennessee. The city struggled with geographic isolation throughout the early 19th century. The arrival of the railroad in 1855 led to an economic boom. During the Civil War, the city was bitterly divided over the secession issue, and was occupied alternately by both Confederate and Union armies. Following the war, Knoxville grew rapidly as a major wholesaling and manufacturing center. The city's economy stagnated after the 1920s as the manufacturing sector collapsed, the downtown area declined and city leaders became entrenched in highly partisan political fights.

Hosting the 1982 World's Fair helped reinvigorate the city, and revitalization initiatives by city leaders and private developers have had major successes in spurring growth in the city, especially the downtown area.Knoxville is the home of the flagship campus of the University of Tennessee, whose sports teams, the Tennessee Volunteers, are popular in the surrounding area. Knoxville is also home to the headquarters of the Tennessee Valley Authority, the Tennessee Supreme Court's courthouse for East Tennessee, and the corporate headquarters of several national and regional companies. As one of the largest cities in the Appalachian region, Knoxville has positioned itself in recent years as a repository of Appalachian culture and is one of the gateways to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

Source: Wikipedia