Banca de DEFESA: TAYNAN ARAÚJO DE OLIVEIRA

(RE) ARRANGEMENTS AND DYNAMICS IN THE URBAN NETWORK OF PARAIBANA

Hierarchy, Urban Network, Arrangements and dynamics, Paraíba.

The debate about urban network, hierarchy and heterarchy has intensified in geographic science,
mainly in the last decade of the 21st century. The theoretical discussions are based on the changes
that have occurred in Brazilian cities due to the dissemination of contents related to the technicalscientific-
informational environment, which starts to consolidate multi-scale relationships
between urban centers. The studies of the Region of Influence of Cities (REGIC), published in 2007
and 2020, signal the changes in question through the analyzes constructed, so that they take into
account the new roles played by Brazilian urban centers, which draws our attention the Regional
Capitals (medium-sized cities), the Sub-Regional Centers and the Zone Centers. Paraíba, according
to REGIC (2020), is one of the Brazilian states that has undergone relevant changes in the
configuration of its urban network, with the multiplication of hierarchies and the redefinition of
the roles and functions performed by cities, especially the Sub-Regional Centers and the Zone
Centers. In view of this, we understand that, based on these transformations, new arrangements
and dynamics are formed based on complementarity and sharing of functions, a fact that
increases the levels of centrality of cities and it changes the game of hierarchical relations existing
between them. We assume that some factors were responsible for the construction of the new
arrangements and dynamics and for the hierarchical reconfigurations, among which we highlight
the role of the state as an agent of production of urban space, responsible for the
implementation of public educational policies, which resulted in the multilocation of institutions
higher and technical education, public and private; the multiplication of public and private health
services; the advance of capitalism on different scales through the tertiary sector, which is now
characterized by the multiplicity of commercial establishments and services of the most diverse
branches and natures; and the dissemination of the technical-scientific-information environment,
based on the dissemination of telephone and internet networks, as well as the financial sector,
with the hypercapillarity of banks. Finally, and taking into account the above, we aimed with the
construction of this thesis to understand the transformations that occurred in the urban network
of Paraíba, in order to highlight the new arrangements and dynamics that condition the sharing
and complementarity of functions between the cities face of the break of hierarchical
relationships, resignifying them from the construction of multiscale relationships. To do so, we
adopted as vectors of analysis the higher and technical education institutions, public and private,
health services, public and private, commercial establishments and their multiple types, with
emphasis on shopping centers, wholeretail, the associative networks and franchises; and the
financial and informational sector based on mobile phone and internet networks, as well as
branches and bank posts. From these vectors, now analyzed, we can infer that the
implementation of public and private institutions of higher and technical education, the
expansion of public and private health services, the multiplication of commercial establishments
in their multiple types and natures and the dissemination of the technical, scientific and
informational contents associated with the internet and mobile telephony network and the
branches and banking posts were responsible for the hierarchical reconfiguration of cities, since
they make their structure more complex, expanding their roles and functions, placing them in
previously unobserved relational positions and creating a set of relationships in a network that
results in the conformation of arrangements and dynamics of a multiscale dimension.