Fordlandia – the failure of Henry Ford’s utopian city in the Amazon (2016)

Officially, Ford’s interest in Brazil was a business venture: the monopoly on Sri Lankan rubber maintained by Britain was driving up costs for his new Model A cars, so he wanted to find a cheap source of latex that would allow the Ford Motor Company to produce its own tyres, to cut costs. Eventually, Ford settled on a location for his ideal city that was a good deal further south than Alabama: the Amazon. Ford finally found a successful manager in Archibald Johnston, who turned the city around after the riot: paving the roads, finishing much of the city’s much needed housing, and beginning work on access roads to connect Fordlandia with the massive territory Ford had acquired inland from the river.

Source: www.theguardian.com