Socio-spatial fragmentation and new peripheries in medium-sized cities in the brazilian semi-arid region: Mossoró (RN) and Sobral (CE)

Abstract

The article aims to analyze the process of socio-spatial fragmentation in two medium-sized cities in the Brazilian Semiarid: Mossoró, RN, and Sobral, CE, based on a comparative analysis of their similarities and differences in demographic size, interurban functions in their respective networks, and especially their peripheral habitats. Both are located in the Northeastern region, established in large rural properties, and influenced by the conditions in the predominant semi-arid climate in the morphoclimatic domain of the Caatinga. At the same time, their historical differences include their geographical situation, spatial structure, social and cultural aspects, and regional economies. Comparative analysis elucidated that these cities exhibit differences central to their process of urban structuring and socio-spatial fragmentation. This socio-spatial fragmentation means a multiscale process that has been systematically deepened by housing policies, either by the persistence of favelas and urban communities or by the strategies of the real estate market, whose agents promote exclusive enclosed residential spaces, almost always associated with an idea of living in the vicinity of places catering to high-income consumption, in pleasant areas and relatively “away” from “unwanted” places in the city, often linked to the denial of the city itself and its socio-environmental relations. Therefore, this article explores socio-spatial fragmentation and its founding aspects based on the dimension of inhabiting and the actions of the economic agents that produce the urban residential space in the new peripheral areas.