Development and Urbanization in the Periphery of the Periphery of the Northeast: from the roots of the cattle-cotton productive structure to the precarious urban services sector in the Metropolitan Regions of Fortaleza and Natal
Urban and Regional Economy; Periphery; Metropolitan Region of Fortaleza; Metropolitan Region of Natal;
Starting from the economic space called northeast gado-algodão, which had very similar production bases until the 1960s, the internal repercussions of the periphery condition of the regional periphery, manifested in the processes of development and urbanization, take place in a differentiated way, through actions policies of local elites and the national market integration process. However, the regional economic dynamism that has always been linked (or dependent) on state policy impulses, whether national, regional or local, is beginning to differentiate by the amounts of investments that are heterogeneously distributed in this space. The thesis is defended that in this cotton-farming northeast, with emphasis on two neighboring northeastern states, RN and CE, the process of development and urbanization made explicit unequal and peripheral metropolitan regions, such as the cases of Metropolitan region of Fortaleza and Natal. For the analysis, it is assumed that historical facts modify social, political and, notably, economic structures. Therefore, the research starts from the analysis of the historical facts that manifested themselves in different periods, positively or negatively impacting the productive and social structures. Incorporating in the research the analysis of data that allow the understanding of a model of an economic structural matrix incorporating non-economic factors, from the historical-structuralist investigation method.