THE FORMATION OF MACROMETROPOLIS IN BRAZIL: URBANIZATION PROCESS AND THE CONSTRUCTION OF A VICTORIOUS REGION

FORMACIÓN DE LA MACROMETRÓPOLIS EN BRASIL: PROCESO DE URBANIZACIÓN Y CONSTITUCIÓN DE UNA REGIÓN GANADORA

Abstract

The main aim of the current study is to investigate the formation of São Paulo Macrometropolis (MMP - Macrometrópole Paulista) through an urbanization process based on the origins of urban dispersion in São Paulo State. The object of the analysis lies on planning actions aimed at promoting urban dispersion from the 1910s to the 1980s, with emphasis on actions that turned the MMP into a privileged industrialization space. The herein adopted methodology focused on investigating the urban, cultural, social and historical aspects of MMP’s formation to help better understanding it at state and national scale, based on theoretical references of regional development and on the idea of a victorious region (BENKO; LIPIETZ, 1992). Conclusions point out to the definition of MMP as a productive competitiveness area defined by economic criteria that consolidate it as a successful core inserted in a broader, conflictive, culturally and socially complex region.

Keywords:
Macrometropolis; regional inequalities; victorious region; Region of Production Vectors

Resumen

Este texto tiene el objetivo de problematizar la formación de la Macrometrópolis Paulista (MMP) por el proceso de urbanización a partir de los orígenes de la dispersión urbana en el estado de São Paulo. El objeto de análisis son las acciones planificadoras que promovieron la dispersión urbana, entre las décadas de 1910 y 1980, destacando aquellas que constituyeron la MMP como espacio privilegiado de la industrialización. Metodológicamente, se busca comprender la macrometropía a partir de la escala estadual y nacional investigando por los aspectos urbanísticos, culturales, sociales e históricos de su formación. Esta comprensión es hecha por los referenciales teóricos del desarrollo regional y por la idea de región ganadora (BENKO, LIPIETZ, 1992). Las conclusiones apuntan a la delimitación de la MMP como un área de competitividad productiva definida por los criterios económicos que se consolida como núcleo exitoso de una región más amplia, conflictiva y compleja cultural y socialmente.

Palabras clave:
Macrometropolis Paulista; desigualdades regionales; región ganadora; Región de los Vectores Productivos

Resumo

Esse texto tem o objetivo de problematizar a formação da Macrometrópole Paulista (MMP) pelo processo de urbanização a partir das origens da dispersão urbana no estado de São Paulo. O objeto de análise são as ações planejadoras que promoveram a dispersão urbana, entre as décadas de 1910 e 1980, destacando aquelas que constituíram a MMP como espaço privilegiado da industrialização. Metodologicamente, busca-se compreender a macrometrópole a partir da escala estadual e nacional, investigando-a pelos aspectos urbanísticos, culturais, sociais e históricos de sua formação. Essa compreensão é feita pelos referenciais teóricos do desenvolvimento regional e pela ideia de região ganhadora (BENKO; LIPIETZ, 1992), interpretada segundo a realidade brasileira. As conclusões apontam para a delimitação da MMP como uma área de competitividade produtiva definida pelos critérios econômicos que se consolida como núcleo bem sucedido de uma região mais ampla, conflituosa e complexa cultural e socialmente.

Palavras-chave:
Macrometrópole Paulista; desigualdades regionais; região ganhadora; Região dos Vetores Produtivos

Introduction

São Paulo Macrometropolis (MMP - Macrometrópole Paulista) became the object of planning actions guided - not exclusively, but mainly - by economic factors focused on setting a global competitiveness space. This process was possible given the choice for a MMP area that could boost public and private investments in areas separated from the developed core, but based on a broader and more complex region.

According to the aforementioned hypothesis, the aim of the current study is to investigate MMP’s formation based on urban, cultural, social and historical features linked to temporal and territorial milestones. The temporal milestone was observed from the 1950s and depicts a continuous regional planning substantiating the industrial and managerial basis of São Paulo State, which has supported the MMP. The territorial milestone, in its turn, is moored on MMP’s role at national scale, since it became the economically successful core of the most developed region in the country.

In order to break loose from the isolated definition of MMP, the MMP was assessed based on the urbanization process, mainly by evaluating the urban dispersion resulting from territorial occupation countrywide, rather than just in São Paulo.

The debate on MMP allows interpreting it not as an isolated element, but as part of a wider and more complex set of factors, but changing the focus of this discussion was a way to point out subjects necessary for the creation of a new agenda aimed at turning the MMP into an agent of inequality. Accordingly, the macrometropolis was seen as the result, and likely the evidence, of a dispersed urbanization featured by an urbanization process outspread throughout the national territory. This urbanization process is continuous, although not always limited to a certain area; however, it is restricted to a single system. The MMP summarizes the “regionalization of daily life” given the new ways of life deriving from intense metropolitan and inter-metropolitan mobility. Such mobility types led to the “new management of urban spaces”, which emerged from life in regular residences and summer houses, and in service or industrial condominiums/allotments; from new forms of public space management in the private domain; from “increasing social fabric fraying” and from the formation of “constellations or nebulae” of urban centers, or neighborhoods, settled in rural areas further integrated to the metropolitan system; and from “changes in passengers’ daily intra-metropolitan transportation” - which have turned highways into intra- and inter-metropolitan expressways (REIS, 2006).

The history of the macrometropolis’ formation was synthesized by the expression “victorious region”, which was borrowed from Georges Benko and Alain Lipietz (1992), who used this term in their book organized about the new paradigms of economic geography. The original idea of ‘victorious region’ addressed by them referred to areas subjected to economic recovery deriving from planning actions. This expression was forged in response to the concept of ‘problem regions’ known for facing economic stagnation and social liabilities that have antagonized the planning regions back in the 1960s and 1970s.

The term “victorious regions” applied to the MMP gained broader and valid meanings because it shows the contradictions in Brazilian planning and development processes. This extrapolation helped the investigation on regional inequality factors resulting from the intricate relationship between the State as a whole and the State Capital. Thus, using the term “victorious region” to address the MMP opens room for the analogy that, on the one hand, shows its similarity to cases assessed by Benko and Lipietz (focused on actions planned to qualify a certain area in order to boost development) and that, on the other hand, highlights contradictions in the Brazilian case. Actions, in Brazil, were centered on resources for areas traditionally privileged by public and private investments; therefore, they could reinforce social differences and environmental vulnerabilities. In the light of these similarities and contradictions, the current study addressed the formation of São Paulo Macrometropolis based on the urbanization process.

Recent interpretations about São Paulo Macrometropolis: flows and competitiveness based on a new governance model

The macrometropolis was planned from the post-Fordist production model, which led to an urban system based on a new territorial-scale, whose metropolitan regions became the very core of a network that became the material basis of everyday life (MEYER; GALVÃO; LONGO, 2015, p. 10-27). Peripheral zones play a structural role in the MMP, since the metropolitan territory - herein understood as a set formed by São Paulo metropolis and urban agglomerations linked to it - was structured by peripheral urban-regional patterns that gave birth to the peri-urban space in the Macrometropolis and that have resulted in zones that face social conflicts. These peripheral urban-regional patterns were encouraged by investments in infrastructure focused on the participation of the real estate and financial capital markets in this process (GROSTEIN, 2015, p. 35-48).

The implementation of spaces for traffic flow, also known as road axes, played a fundamental role in MMP’s structuring process, since it opened new paths for state investments in the continuity of the process to restructure production within its borders. Territory organization was, then, mainly achieved through the global/local interaction. São Paulo-Campinas axis encompasses the Anhanguera and Bandeirantes highways. It reinforced the permanence of investments and wealth concentration in this area, which has strengthened mid- and small-sized cities by changing the urban morphology of its surroundings due to its new use for housing, trade, service, logistics and industry (EIGENHEER; SOMEKH, 2017, p. 779-794). The importance of São Paulo-Campinas axis is similar to that of the axis linking the Metropolitan Region of Campinas to the Metropolitan Region of Paraíba Valley and to the Northern Coast, mainly to the traffic flow in Tamoios Highway - which was recently duplicated. This axis was consolidated by the implementation of industrial poles in its territory and by the proliferation of high-standard residences. It also plays a key role in the inflow of machinery and raw materials to the region, as well as in the flow of industrial production to São Sebastião Port (HENRIQUE; SOUZA; RESCHILIAN, 2017, p. 800-804).

Studies about pendular mobility in the MMP have confirmed the important role played by these traffic flow axes, since they led to population growth rates eight times higher than the annual rate observed in metropolitan regions. In 2010, 14.18% of the labor force living in the metropolitan regions comprising the MMP practiced commuting - 81% of such commuting was observed within the metropolitan regions themselves. There was 131% increase in interregional commuting between 2000 and 2010 (CUNHA; STOCO; DOTA; NEGREIROS; MIRANDA, 2013, p. 434-454); this number expresses the socio-spatial inequalities it can account for. Migratory flows, in their turn, have proved the hegemony of São Paulo City and the significant hierarchy among counties (FARIAS; HINESTROZA, 2016, p. 3- 8). The frequency and intensity of these migratory flows have shown how urban agglomerations composing the MMP complete each other. This process was evidenced by the extension, dispersion and fragmentation of the urban spot, by the development of a new urban morphology based on greater integration among parts, on sharing production, on infrastructural and land-use systems, as well as on interdependence and complementarity among counties. However, the system did not stop spoliation and differences between the main poles and peripheral zones (SILVA; CUNHA; ORTEGA, 2017, p. 723- 743).

Therefore, the MMP brought along a new planning, investment and governance scale that requires articulation, integration and cooperation to fulfil social, urban and environmental demands at metropolitan sphere, as well as to enable the development of competitiveness strategies to be applied in the region (NEGREIROS; SANTOS; MIRANDA, 2015, p. 124). The planning process applied to the MMP (as a single territory) should imply the bond of municipal and metropolitan plans to enable cooperation among federated entities (NEGREIROS; SANTOS; MIRANDA, 2015, p. 125-133). The MMP must be acknowledged as the opportunity to integrate scope and scale in management actions focused on public services (such as water supply and sanitation), since it is the association of different territories subjected to a single urbanization process (SILVA, 2015, p. 137-152). The Macrometropolis became the opportunity to accomplish institutional metropolization at national level, since the current metropolitan legal framework, at state and national level, does not have the answers to the existing socio-spatial inequality issues. This finding reinforces the asymmetrical and competitive nature of Brazilian federalism (CASTRO; SANTOS JÚNIOR, 2017, p. 704-716). The guidelines of the Macrometropolis Action Plan (PAM, 2015) have outlined strategies focused on increasing the region’s competitiveness in order to keep it as the main target for investments. However, it is important emphasizing that this process goes against the main goal of regional planning, namely: to fight inequalities (RESCHILIAN; UEHARA, 2015, 5-10).

MMP analyses and interpretations introduce it as the contemporary evidence of dispersed urbanization, which is featured by the hegemony of material and immaterial, human and capital, demographic and industrial flows; by daily-life regionalization and by institutional metropolization. The MMP becomes the space for new ways of setting urban-regional relationships based on affinity between the global and the local sphere. This macrometropolis is supported by centralities, peripheries and axes held by a new governance scale that requires the redefinition and integration of public services (aligned to interdependence).

These authors unanimously present the MMP as the product from the restructuring and displacement of the industrial activity to hinterlands. However, the historical “development of hinterlands” is both the evidence of, and product from, the MMP; this process was more comprehensible and comprised a broader and more complex region, whose most successful center is the MMP itself.

São Paulo urbanization process guided by industrial and managerial embodiment

Planning actions bond to regional planning paradigms were outspread in the territory of São Paulo State by their industrial and managerial embodiment. These actions guided the urbanization process and represented the very embryo of dispersed urbanization.

The pioneering planning actions were triggered by the construction of highways between 1910 and 1940. These highways turned the State of São Paulo into a major national road node for industrial production chain integration. Incentives to move industrial activities was the response to industrial concentrations trends observed since the 1950s. Such incentives were recommended in studies conducted by SAGMACS - Economics and Humanism (“Development Issues - São Paulo State’s Needs and Possibilities”, 1954), which suggested industrial expansion towards the main urban centers located along the main roads in São Paulo hinterlands. Anhaia Mello’s proposal (‘‘São Paulo Regional Plan - University Contribution to the study about ‘A Lawful Land Use Code’, 1954) has consolidated a strategy similar to that in the SAGMACS’ plan, namely: industrial activity and demographic (population within a 100-km radius around the city) dispersal from the capital.

Transportation infrastructure expansion projects such as the construction of Castello Branco (in the 1960s), D. Pedro I, Bandeirantes (in the 1970s) and Imigrantes (in the 1970s and 1980s) highways, have set the economic development of economic axes focused on production activities performed in industrial districts and condominiums. The construction of road rings alongside Tietê and Pinheiros rivers from the 1970s on, and of the road ring called Rodoanel, from the 1990s on, marked the disruption of the 1913 radial structure planning that was put in place by the second São Paulo State road plan. Rodoanel enabled the industrial activity to outspread, although such activity remained limited to a radius of influence around São Paulo City.

Some programs developed at that time derived from federal public policies that have played a fundamental role in forming an urban network based on territorial organization strategies developed for industrial production purposes. The program called ‘‘Balcão de Projetos’’ (1974) has encouraged the development of industrial districts in the main cities in hinterlands, whereas the “Industrial Development and Dispersal Policy” (PDDI, 1982) set the dispersal movement by establishing a zone of counties to benefit from new industries, rather than from other economic activities associated with lower incomes and low-qualified manpower.

Managerial displacement to hinterlands came along the incentives from the State of São Paulo to outspread industrial activities. Acknowledging the state’s hinterlands as places for integration among, managerial, political and economic power was the first step towards regionalizing the state. The creation of managerial subsidiaries in the 1930s (Law N. 311 from March 2^nd, 1938; Decree N. 9775, from November 30^th, 1938) enabled the formation of an integration space for managerial forces that reorganized the state and changed the destinations to the main counties in each region. This process was enhanced in the 1950s by the “Government Action Plan” (PAG, 1959), which allowed effective managerial decentralization through investments in health and legal services, as well as through incentives to agricultural and logistical production in the state’s hinterlands. Based on studies conducted by Cepeu (Center for Research and Urban Studies) in 1967 (“The Regionalization of Governmental Action”, 1967), the state government divided the territory into 10 polarized regions. Decrees N. 48162/67 and 48163/67 have reinforced the territorialization strategy addressed in the priority investment guidelines, which resulted in the implementation of Regional Planning Offices (ERPLAN - Escritórios Regionais de Planejamento) and Regional Development Councils (CDR - Conselhos de Desenvolvimento Regional), as well as in a network of new hospitals, schools, colleges, libraries, forums, penitentiaries and urban infrastructure projects to build bridges, among other infrastructure items. The State Department of Buildings and Public Works (DOP - Departamento de Edifícios e Obras Públicas) developed these projects to qualify the territory, and its population, to attract private capital to the implementation of new industrial facilities.

These actions covered almost the entire State of São Paulo, except for regions such as Ribeira Valley and Pontal do Paranapanema, which were seen as “problem regions” and often considered different objects for public actions - or not.

The industrial displacement to hinterlands was gradual and resulted in industrial displacement within the maximum radius of 150 km from São Paulo Capital - this limit still meets the current limit set to the MMP; however, state actions have widespread and qualified a wider area. The industrial poles grew around the main road axes and were organized along the main urban centers; they further encompassed the so-called Region of Productive Vectors, i.e., a region in the State of São Paulo that is known by its high urbanization and investment indices and that is historically featured by significant production and socioeconomic differences. São Paulo Macrometropolis is the core of this region; it is the most successful and economically influential area in the region, as well as the limit of capital concentration in it, despite the controlled movement to the hinterlands encouraged by the State government.

Local decisions focused on the formation of São Paulo Macrometropolis

São Paulo Macrometropolis became a “victorious region’ due to planning actions focused on differentiating it from the rest of the Region of Productive Vectors. Such differentiation was based on its ability to produce with greater efficiency and faster, since factors account for improving economic return to public and private investments.

The “Urban and Regional Development Policy” (PDUR, 1976) is part of the “Development Embodiment” program; it suggested the association of counties in Great São Paulo Metropolitan Region with clusters of counties such as that formed by Santos, Jundiaí, Sorocaba, Campinas and São José dos Campos. Such association would widespread the metropolitan growth and turn these clusters into “Macrometropolis” (SÃO PAULO (State); ECONOMY AND PLANNING SECRETARIAT; ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL PLANNING INSTITUTE; NATIONAL COMMITTEE OF METROPOLITAN REGIONS AND URBAN POLICY, 1976).

The “Regional Action” from 1971 derived from the program known as “Mid-sized Cities and Industrial Development. Metropolitan Decentralization Proposal” (1978), which defined the area of interest for studies and priority actions. This area encompassed the “Main Center’’ (São Paulo Metropolitan Region) and ‘‘Secondary Centers’’(Santos, São José dos Campos, Campinas and Sorocaba) (SÃO PAULO (State); ECONOMY AND PLANNING SECRETARIAT, 1978) - it comprised 63 counties, within a 100-120 km radius from the State capital -, together they formed the “Macrometropolis”.

Back in 1978, this area became the object of surveys and cartographic studies substantiated by Law 1825/1978, which authorized the government to grant loans to studies about “macrometropolis”. However, there is no accurate definition about the exact scope of a macrometropolis, yet.

PDDI (1982) was destined to cities located along the valley of Tietê River, it set a section of counties selected for prior investments. Based on a geographical delimitation - very similar to that of the MMP at present times - these counties represented an opportunity for immediate returns.

Back in the late 1980s, among other explanations, the “macrometropolis” was used as territorial basis to justify the construction of highways, and their concession to DERSA, due to interests in industrial production (Decrees N. 27962/1987 and 28206/1988). According to the aforementioned decrees, “macrometropolis” limits were set by the “extensive area surrounding the Great São Paulo Metropolitan Region’’, Baixada Santista, Campinas region, Paraíba Valley, Sorocaba region, as well as by the area between Atibaia region and the limits of Ribeira Valley (Decree N. 28206/1988).

The state government enacted Decree N. 52748/2008 in 2008 to create the “Working Group to propose water resource-use alternatives in São Paulo Macrometropolis”. Based on this decree, São Paulo Macrometropolis encompassed the Metropolitan Regions of São Paulo, Campinas and Baixada Santista, as well as the Water Resources Management Units of Alto Tietê, Piracicaba, Capivari and Jundiaí, Baixada Santista, Sorocaba and Médio Tietê, Paraíba do Sul, among others (Article 1., § 2 and 3).

The definitions described above got embroiled over time; they derived from sectorial interests often linked to logistics, industry or to the environment, mainly when it comes to water resources provision. However, all sectorial interests were in compliance with the state planning system, which was based on the acknowledgement of the urbanization process taking place in the State of São Paulo. All these definitions addressed the importance of the area living under the influence of São Paulo metropolis; however, they presented different limits to its borders - which could change depending on the occasion or on the sectorial interest.

Besides differences observed at the level of technical debates - which were caused by sectorial bias-, one can also observe divergences due to the political influence of municipalist traditions.

Back in 1978, the MMP comprised 63 counties; in 2011, it counted on 153 (SÃO PAULO (State), 2011 it counties, whose areas were under the direct influence of São Paulo metropolis, including counties belonging to São Paulo Circuit of Waters; in 2014, the MMP encompassed 172 counties (SÃO PAULO (State); SECRETARIAT OF THE CIVIL HOUSE; EMPLASA, 2014, book 1, p. 09). The 2014 version of the MMP did not include small counties belonging to the Circuit of Waters, which were less productive than, and economically inferior to, the metropolitan regions; however, it held counties linked to the newly created Metropolitan Region of Sorocaba. The MMP comprised 174 counties in 2018 (https://www.emplasa.sp.gov.br/MMP, access on June 22^nd, 2017), before Itapetininga (which was belatedly incorporated to the Metropolitan Region of Sorocaba) and Laranjal Paulista (which was part of the Urban Agglomeration of Piracicaba, since 2012) were added to it. The recent MMP configuration presents area variation ranging from approximately 44,000 km² to 53,000 km²; these numbers depict the dispute among municipalities that aim at belonging to a “victorious region”, at least to its planning policies.

The recent years have witnessed fast institutional changes after three metropolitan regions were created (two of which are MMP members); they are in compliance with municipal requirements necessary to fit the metropolitan and macro-metropolitan framework. These regions have set the changing limits of the MMP, as well as have evidenced the formation of a region that remains strongly dependent on São Paulo City. However, this evidence is only understood by those who are aware of the urbanization process in the state.

Such awareness, in its turn, explains the exclusion of counties such as Bauru and São Carlos-Araraquara, and of their respective managerial regions, from all MMP proposals. However, these counties - which are more than 250 km away from São Paulo City - maintain strong service, job positions, trade, research and scientific production relationships with it and with other counties in the MMP. They have their own regional dynamics and form a cohesive urban network along with other hinterland counties. Their inclusion into the MMP limits would likely represent territorial balance due to polycentrality; however, it would break the monocentric hegemony of São Paulo City in the MMP.

These divergences resulted in at least five physical-managerial limits to the Macrometropolis, three of them were addressed in the last ten years. These limits refer to conditions focused on turning the Macrometropolis into a territory that meets sectorial demands; however, each case fits a different limit. This process repeats a public administration stereotype based on the hegemony of sectorial planning over territorial planning. This managerial profile holds political requests of municipalist patronage focused on giving support to decisions made by the government at state and federal scale. Therefore, these managerial practices depict strategies to provide more resources to, and in some cases to enhance the status of, the metropolis - even when the county(ies) does(do) not present metropolitan features.

Given these growing disputes, barriers and conflicts, the economic sector emerges as a determining and agglutinating agent in the main decisions to be made, mainly because it advocates that local development strategies are territorial solutions that can be extrapolated to the regional scale or to regional development strategies that depend on local growth.

Macrometropolis seen as the main core of the Region of Productive Vectors

It is possible stating that the MMP was set within the Region of Productive Vectors. Both the MMP and the Region of Productive Vectors derived from the same urbanization process, but the MMP recently stood out as planning unit and as the main destination of public and private investments.

The traffic flow intensity cartogram of road networks showed continuous flow increase in São Paulo City’s surroundings in the late 1970s. The traffic flow was clearly split among Dutra, Anchieta and Anhanguera axes, so the cartogram has shaped the macrometropolis based on the integration logic of the industrial production chain.

FIGURE 01
Flowchart of traffic intensity on São Paulo highways in the 1970s.

This movement has changed the urban reality in the cities comprising the system, whose regional functions were determined by an intense interdependence relationship. This interdependence led to significant commuting resulting from the sharing of job positions, trade, specialized services, education, leisure and entertainment, among other factors.

Accordingly, the demographic evolution of cities in these axes has shown the development level observed in the Macrometropolis, which was essential to help consolidating it as a place for concentration and density of people and industrial activities. It also illustrated the Macrometropolis’ trend of continuous growth towards the hinterlands. This movement reinforces its profile, namely: to be a hotspot and a dominating core over the hinterland.

FIGURE 02
Urban Size and Functional Role played by São Paulo State Cities - 1980s

FIGURE 03
Population in the Regional Center Subsystems - 1980s

All the herein addressed information makes it clear that there is no true polycentrality in the MMP, since it comprises urban centers that orbit São Paulo City and are directly influenced by it. These counties belonging to different categories and their dependence to the MMP highlight a monocentric, although multi-polarized, model. The Region of Productive Vectors depicts the polycentrality concept, since the MMP represents an important center associated with other centralities formed by urban centers in the hinterlands. These centers (poles) became regional centralities - given their significant independence from São Paulo City - and, now, they influence other regions, as well.

FIGURE 04
São Paulo State - Urban Network - Total population distribution - 1980s

The significant MMP growth derived from industrial poles implemented within a 100km radius around São Paulo City. This outspread of industrial poles has reinforced the city’s autonomy from other cities in the state and in the country, as well as has unbalanced the relationship among counties comprising the MMP - it also highlights the hegemony of São Paulo City. Hinterland centers farther from, and lesser subjected to, such influence, did not directly benefit from the industrial displacement, but they gained greater autonomy after they joined the Region of Productive Vectors. This finding points out the important role played by regional planning, which gave these centers the status of production chain motivators and has set a system of cities bond by services and businesses that, together, have changed the territorial development profile of São Paulo State.

Giving the need of technical and political legitimacy, much can be changed or completed until the MMP is legalized. However, what one can still observe that the definition of MMP is a broader view of ‘planning region’ that highlights a set of ‘victorious regions’. Unlike the dualist perspective - whose actions were guided by the balance achieved through joint actions taken by central and peripheral zones -, the aim of the historical construction of the Macrometropolis is to turn it into an economic investment driver, into a potential space headed towards production and, therefore, into an isolated and competitive region used as investment strategy by the global market. This condition explains the withdrawal of the Circuit of Waters from the MMP limits and the opposition to the inclusion of urban agglomerations such as Bauru and São Carlos/Araraquara (Central region) to it, since they also influence other urban systems. However, Bauru and the Central Circuit of Waters have direct daily, cultural and historical relationship with many centers composing the Macrometropolis, as well as with São Paulo City. Actually, their inclusion would not correspond to what can be considered a monocentric system, but to a multipolarized region - different from what was stated in their plans.

Thus, the MMP is in compliance with positive economic (it accounts for 83% and 27% of the state and national GDP, respectively), demographic (64% and 2.6% of the total state and national population, respectively) and urbanization (urbanization rate of 94.83%, 50% of the state’s urbanized area) indices; and with the concentration of transport infrastructure (the main highways in the country, Santos Port - which holds 25% of the country’s export and import movement -, and the largest international airport, Guarulhos Airport - which accommodated 39.5 million passengers in 2014). All these factors turn the MMP into the very core of the Region of Productive Vectors and makes it a privileged space for investments. Therefore, the Macrometropolis was built to be a successful area within a wider and more complex region due to the urbanization process.

FIGURE 05
São Paulo Macrometropolis and the Region of Productive Vectors

Conclusion

São Paulo Macrometropolis is part of the Region of Productive Vectors; it encompasses the main urban centers and road axes in São Paulo State. The MMP is formed by cities located within a 150-km radius from São Paulo City. National and state public policies have focused on forming the macrometropolis in order to boost industrial development in Brazil. These policies were based on the Fordist production method; therefore, the concept of macrometropolis in place still carries features characteristic of Fordism, such as the territorial division of labor. This feature differentiates areas that stand out for the prevalence of economic activities, but that yet deal with greater or lesser growth potential. These areas resulted from the effects of planning actions aimed at displacing the industrial and managerial activities from the Region of Productive Vectors to hinterlands. The physical-managerial edges of this region expose growing conflicts caused by managerial sectorization and by the prevalence of municipalism in decision-making processes. However, the Macrometropolis stands out for its best economic indices, since it concentrates the main public and private investments in development actions.

The MMP derived from state centrifugal forces aimed at moving companies and administrative bodies towards hinterlands by concentrating investments in cities within São Paulo City’s influence radius. It was done in order to enhance public and private investments focused on significant production and competitiveness increase at global scale. The definition of MMP as a planned area has intensified the territorial development at state and national scale, since it is a “victorious region” destined to the concentration of state and private privileges. Macrometroplis represents the largest economic density in the country; therefore, its relationship with, and influence on, the Southern and Southeastern regions, as well as Goiás and Mato Grosso do Sul states, can be clearly observed (IBGE, 2010, p. 125, 135 and 204). This finding reinforced the old national project of production hegemony designed for the Central-South macro-region, which led to high urbanization, integration and hierarchy rates.

The MMP’s development as a hegemonic center has reinforced regional inequality, rather than have fought it; accordingly, it is necessary going against the likely reproduction of this model by stop seeing it as a global space often more connected to other centers around the world due to new technologies, but less physically and functionally bond to its surroundings. The Macrometropolis should not be considered as an end in itself, but as a fraction of a networked territory whose horizontal relationships present significant topological nature (VELTZ, 1999, p. 53-64) and go beyond connections established at regional and local scale. Therefore, it is necessary revising its limits by taking into consideration other parts of the territory. These territories play an important role in providing service, production, cultural, social and entertainment activity to São Paulo City, a fact that minimizes MMP’s monocentric trend. It is also necessary to disrupt local and regional fragmentations (BORJA; CASTELLS, 1997, p. 67) to integrate the MMP to a larger territory in order to create new spaces at macro-metropolitan scale and focused on individuals’ daily experiences. Thus, the macrometropolis must not be understood as a core detached from the hinterlands, but as part of a whole that cooperates with other parts.

The new urban scale reached by the herein addressed regional phenomena must be taken into account. It is necessary valuing functions associated with urban life at the time to think about the development of such scale. These functions go beyond the traditional city and become a region; they are not sprawling cities, but opportunities that go beyond the central, rich and excluding areas. The boundaries of traditional cities in the 20^th century must be seen as territories of opportunities, since they can provide resources and infrastructure. Nowadays, these cities are inserted in a system comprising new production, cultural and housing spaces, among others. Similar to other countries (GOTTDIENER, 1990, p. 59-78), changes in the Brazilian urban fabric, mainly in São Paulo, did not start with production restructuring, but were socially and economically boosted by it. Together, these changes and the production restructuring process have led to the urban-regional scale, which needs to be embodied as a territory of urban life to fight inappropriate low densities. This embodiment is the way to achieve urban and environmental development, as well as to picture the expansion of São Paulo City’s surrounding cities as the opportunity to create new centralities bond by the development of new urban nodes that exceed the existing ones.

The historical, cultural, social, environmental and governance aspects of the macrometropolis must be taken into account, since they bring a new scale to planning processes. Thus, it is necessary planning the urban and regional development of São Paulo Macrometropolis in order to fight regional inequalities. New regions, such as the Region of Productive Vectors or the MMP itself, require managers and planners capable of understanding this new action scale, but without disregarding the existing conflicts. These regions were set in the 20^th century and have become a space for daily life.

References

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Endereços eletrônicos:

• https://www.emplasa.sp.gov.br/Institucional/Detalhe/A-empresa, acessado em 22.06.2017.
  » https://www.emplasa.sp.gov.br/Institucional/Detalhe/A-empresa
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• 1
  . This manuscript is part of the research included in FAPESP’s Regular Project Process n. 2018/13.637-0

Publication Dates

• Publication in this collection
  08 June 2020
• Date of issue
  2020

History

• Received
  11 June 2019
• Accepted
  08 Sept 2019