O processo de urbanização de Mossorò: dos processos históricos à estrutura urbana atual

The general objective of this academic work is to analyze the relationship between the territorial division and the urban expansion process of Mossoró city, understood here as the production and occupation of space. The urban expansion in Mossoró, since its formation as settlement in 1772 until current days, identifies with the Brazilian urbanization process whose growth is determined by the capitalist development. Thus, the expansion was determined by several economical specializations imposed by the territorial division of work which occurs at an interregional level, and, sometimes at an international level. Then, each specialization determined a moment of the urban expansion of the city, as follows: a) The cattle farmer specialization, between 1772 and 1857, when the urban expansion was shy, is summarized to a commercial square that received goods from Aracati aiming to cover a wide rural area; b) The commercial emporium specialization, between 1857 and 1930, when the urban expansion took an important impulse with the concentration of public and private capitals; c) The salt industry and the agricultural-industrial exporter specialization inside a state of development policy, between 1930 and 1970, when the urban expansion, joined to the settlement of the working class in the urban soil, developed along an important axis -the railway; d) The render of services specialization inside a state of intervention policy, between 1970 and 1990, when the urban expansion was characterized by the accelerated growth rhythm, by the reuse of some spaces, and by space segregation of demanding people; e) The render of services policy inside a neoliberal state policy, since 1990 until current days, when the urban expansion reduced its rhythm abruptly, when only small alterations occurred in the existing spaces. It focused on social policies and on several slums eradication programs. Finally, the territorial structure is deeply articulated with others, no territorial, but economical, social and political, which happens at a national, regional and local rate. Only within a historical and conceptual panorama, it was possible to explain the urban expansion in Mossoró from its formation in 1772 until current days. Therefore, this work is a several discipline analysis of the urbanization process existing in Mossoró

Arquitetura da (in)segurança: estudando relações entre configuração espacial, artifícios de segurança e violência urbana no bairro Manaíra, João Pessoa, Paraíba

João Pessoa, the capital city of the state of Paraíba (Northeast Brazil), is reputed throughout the country as a quiet place, although it has been acquiring, over the past years, an urban character with social implications similar to those of major metropolitan Brazilian areas. The new situation is evident by the social inequalities, with the creation of confined spaces, which segregate and cause enclosure of the inhabitants, leading to death the public space. This study correlates accessibility in spatial structure with two types of crime data, burglary and robbery, recorded in 2008 and 2009, by the Secretaria de Segurança da Paraíba (The government agency public in charge of safety), in the district of Manaíra, an upper middle class neighborhood, which has, in recent times, been considered one of the most violent areas in João Pessoa. Sought to understand connections between these events and morpho-social aspects of the built environment, where examined the spatial properties, such as accessibility of the urban net, the presence of control measures, the safety of buildings and their uses. Spatial properties were also validated by the observation of pedestrian flows at strategic points of the study area. It was concluded that the presence of intense flows helps to attract potential thieves, physical security and control offers little protection

Geografia da dominação: um estudo sobre a organização espacial da terra do sal (Macau-RN)

This work aims to understand the spatial organization in the Town of Macau, State of Rio Grande do Norte, Brazil. This approach focus on bringing back the history of the town, the main personages responsible for the construction of this place, denominated "social agents", as well as its social processes and the spatial forms derived from them. As the personages and their practices were identified, it was found out the existence of a driving force for structuring, interlocking, and maintaining the actions carried out by the social agents during the time. Such actions were materialized in the urban space: "the social segregation". The social segregation takes place as a specific geography of domination. The outcome of those owning the best areas" and ways of accessibility in the urban space, varies from the enrichment by property valorization, because of the concentration of public investments of infrastructure, to the comfort of easily reaching all the daily needs related to the displacements in the urban space. In the latter case, such facility has contributed to improve life quality. While one takes advantage of the location in the urban space, others are negatively affected by the same process. This research identified the salina worker as the weakest element of this social structure, occupying the urban periphery of the town of Macau. Such area is characterized by the lack of services and urban equipment in opposition to the center of the town, the locus of elite. This way, it is established the most known segregation pattern: center x periphery, in which the space acts as a mechanism of segregation