The Production of Urban Space of Pau dos Ferros (RN): an analysis of real estate and urban land.
Production of urban space; Urban expansion; Real estate speculation; Pau dos Ferros
Debates about the production of urban space are important in discussions about cities. The theme is relevant because it is able to contextualize and identify urban transformation processes, the agents involved and their obligations due contributions to the current reality of a city. In this context, it is understood that to understand how an urban center works, we need, first of all, to point out its space production process. Within this theme, the present research will be carried out in Pau dos Ferros, a city with approximately 30,000 thousand inhabitants, located in the interior of Rio Grande do Norte, approximately 400km from the state capital, Natal. Despite the small population (large compared to the surrounding cities), Pau dos Ferros has a significant importance in its region, functioning as a hub city providing services to more than 30 municipalities in Rio Grande do Norte, Paraíba and Ceará. This service provision, in addition to private trade, arises through strong government investment in its areas of health and education, and has caused the urban dynamics of Pau dos Ferros to change throughout the 21st century, attracting more and more new actors. , either on a fixed basis or on a daily basis. The research proposes to understand these alterations in the urban area, analyzing issues that involve land and real estate production in the city, passing through the transformation of rural/semi-rural into urban, constructions, pricing and who were the determining agents in this process. The time frame of the production will be from 2010 to 2022, a period in which this growth was intensified by the arrival of important public institutions in the city. Finally, the research will seek to understand how the state acted, through the municipal sphere, as a producer of urban space, in the period of city growth. Within this line of research, the main objective of this master's thesis is to understand the production of urban space in the city of Pau dos Ferros, focusing on its land and real estate production. Therefore, the methodology adopted presents a quantitative approach containing field research that intends to point out data regarding the urban growth of the city through information obtained from various sources, such as Registry Offices and Real Estate Companies. The research also has qualitative characteristics, since it will understand the actions of the municipal sphere through the creation or not of public policies during the mentioned growth that would directly influence the action of the producing agents. At the end of the work, it is expected to understand how the processes of urban transformation in Pau dos Ferros took place in the indicated time frame, and how much the actions of the agents with the municipal public power were decisive for the reality found.