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Urbanization and hunger in Campinas (São Paulo, Brazil): from its inception to the popularization of the urban food context

Summary

In São Paulo, Brazil, Campinas city is characterized by both the history of an economic boom, which was influenced by agrarian, financial, and real estate capital, and food scarcity among those comprising its low-income population. As the result of an intense process of gentrification and the presence of hunger, an urban food situation is highlighted in the reproduction of urban space that is characterized by a large number of food establishments that provide food for workers, decrease food scarcity, and prevent the inflation of staple food prices. By drawing on secondary research and empirical data, we demonstrate that Campinas has experienced important urban transformations that have prompted changes in food practices in the period between 1850 and 2016. Hunger among the poor population of Campinas is rooted in the rationalization of the urban space comprising the peripheral sprawl and the growth and densification of markets offering cheap, prepared foods in the city center; these serve to prevent famine among the vulnerable working class, which constitutes the hungry masses of Campinas’ urban world.

Keywords:
Popular food commerce; Campinas’s history; City center

Resumo

A cidade de Campinas, no estado de São Paulo, Brasil, caracteriza-se historicamente pela pujança econômica - influenciada pelo capital agrário, imobiliário e financeiro em sua formação urbana - e pela escassez alimentícia de sua população de mais baixa renda. Destaca-se na reprodução de seu espaço urbano, como resultado do intenso processo de aburguesamento e da vivencia da fome, uma situação alimentar urbana, que sinaliza para uma presença maciça de instituições alimentares, cujo fim seria, além de garantir a alimentação ao trabalhador, amenizar o mal da escassez e carestia de gêneros alimentícios de primeira necessidade na urbe. Baseados em pesquisa bibliográfica, documental e empírica, destaca-se que no período entre 1850 e 2016, Campinas viveu importantes transformações urbanas que modificaram suas práticas alimentares. Observa-se que a fome na população pobre campineira tem raízes na racionalidade urbana, contexto no qual o espraiamento das periferias estimulou ainda mais o crescimento e popularização de um mercado de refeições prontas e baratas no núcleo central - abrigo histórico de trabalhadores precarizados, os famintos do mundo urbano campineiro.

Palavras-chave:
Comércio popular de alimentação; História de Campinas; Núcleo central

Introduction

This article seeks to illuminate the emergence, agglomeration, and densification of the urban food context in the center of Campinas, São Paulo - Brazil. To address this issue, this work considers the historical development of the city, which has yielded an abundance that is the product of its economic strength, as well as the scarcity that is experienced by underprivileged inhabitants and materializes in the degrading phenomenon of human misery: hunger.

As a result of this dialectical pairing and the revealing way that Campina’s poor inhabitants have organized themselves in the intrinsic urban-fabric to sustain their existence, an urban food context has developed; it comprises a massive presence of food institutions as food markets, restaurants, bars, and food stalls in busy areas, with the aim of not only ensuring a food supply for the workers who leave their homes, but also of softening the calamity suffered by most of the city's poor inhabitants (MARTINS, 2010MARTINS, V. Mercados urbanos, transformações na cidade: abastecimento e cotidiano em Campinas, 1859-1908. Campinas: Editora da Unicamp, 2010.), which results in scarcity and the high cost of staple food.

The period between 1850 and 2016 is highlighted in this article; during this time, Campinas city underwent a series of urban transformations that interfered with and modified the eating habits of its population: starting the creation of an urban agglomeration, and the popularization of urban food.

At present, food markets and the so-called “alternative supply” have allowed the development of centrality in Campinas’s urban environment, and are responsible for organizing and controlling the sale of food to the city’s workers.

The methodology of this work comprised a documental bibliographic research, which included books, theses, dissertations, journal articles, newspaper articles, photographic material, historical maps and series, as well as digital collections and places of memory in Campinas.

The chronological methodological tool, which measures the division of time over certain periods (SANTOS, 1994______. Técnica, espaço, tempo. São Paulo: Edusp, 1994.), presents itself as a fundamental method for this reflection. It can show how the city, an actual place situated in space at a particular time (SANTOS, 1994), has been produced and planned, in addition to revealing how its workers organized themselves into a routine that was strongly marked by hunger, a situation which continues today. On that point, from 1850 to 2016, three periods are integral to the examination conducted within this article’s scope: 1850 to 1908, during which time the inception of the city’s food market occurred; 1909 to 1930, during which time the food market densified; and 1931 to 2016, when the current market became popular.

According to Santos (1994)______. Técnica, espaço, tempo. São Paulo: Edusp, 1994., urban studies do not question the historical development of cities. Therefore, a fundamental awareness of a city’s former configuration requires a connection with the concept of space, which is the “result of the inseparability of objects and action systems” and is not only “a function of the material result that has accumulated from human actions throughout time, but is also stimulated by the current human actions that assign both dynamism and functionality” (SANTOS, 1996______. A natureza do espaço. Técnica e tempo, razão e emoção. São Paulo: Hucitec, 1996., p. 100-106). By approaching a space as a “historical category” (SANTOS, 1994, p. 67), the study of a city cannot be separated from a study of time.

Therefore, it is certain that to enable a true progression in comprehending the hunger phenomenon in Campinas and the eating habits of its workers, an analysis of the forms and contents of poverty included in the urban process and the different uses of space already in existence in the city’s interstices is critical.

Hence, certain inquiries must be conducted regarding the manner in which the city has historically transformed and organized itself over the past centuries: when were the rights and needs of the poor and the starved addressed in this city, which has been enriched by the coffee trade? How does the alternative food supply, a historical symbol of the ongoing fight and resistance in the cities, lose ground in a city that has increasingly been transformed into a commodity? How does food scarcity, which is inherent in the city’s process of impoverishment, historically define and support discussion on the bourgeoisie standardization of spaces used for trade?

The inception of Campinas’s urban food situation: the development of the city’s food market (1850-1908)

During the first half of the nineteenth century, the most sensitive urban development of Campinas occurred (GEIGER, 1963GEIGER, P. A evolução da rede urbana. Rio de Janeiro: INEP, 1963.); the coffee production changed the city’s course. Between 1850 and 1908, we highlight the following events: (i) a scarcity crisis that was strengthened by the city’s transformations, and (ii) the gentrification of the coffee-focused city due to the rise of urban food markets and other establishments that were responsible for food-related commerce in the city.

On the one hand, Campinas was a city of rich coffee barons and on the other, it was a city of poor workers. This was illustrated by the following issues: an exacerbating contrast of misery and wealth, the displacement and spatial confinement of the city’s impoverished, and an urban life regulation, which modified and increased the demand for food obtained through commerce, primarily to ensure a sufficient supply for the unforeseen dense population of migrants that had arrived in the city and joined the working class (LAPA, 2008aLAPA, J. R., do A. A cidade: os cantos e os antros: Campinas 1850-1900. São Paulo: Editora da USP; Campinas: Editora da Unicamp, 2008a.).

Among other functions, the urban life regulation aimed to overcome the food supply crisis, which was caused by the high price of food staples due to the coffee monoculture. The profits from coffee resulted in the maximal expression of poverty: hunger. The latter statement is a historical fact and is associated with the capitalist mode of production.

In this context of significant disparities, which was evinced by the limited access to food, the bourgeoisie order was established and asserted itself by enforcing a sequence of urban and social transformations. Among these, we highlight the creation of Campinas’s first food supply market in 1859, a new institution responsible for controlling the flow of people and commodities (MARTINS, 2010MARTINS, V. Mercados urbanos, transformações na cidade: abastecimento e cotidiano em Campinas, 1859-1908. Campinas: Editora da Unicamp, 2010.)

Indeed, the guarantee of the food supply for Campinas’s inhabitants propelled a restructuring of the urban space; the changes surpassed the so-called Mercado Grande’s purpose of trading only food or counteracting the scarcity of food staples. The new boundaries and space restructuration also obligated the Mercado to develop a new centrality in nineteenth century Campinas. In parallel, the other two markets strengthened this centrality: the Mercado das Hortaliças in 1872, Mercadinho, and the Mercado das Hortaliças in 1886. Both markets materialized the city’s urban changes, which attracted a workforce and substantial investments.

The construction of those markets organized the beginning of the city’s redevelopment, which was notably informal and guided by traditions, into a natural arrangement and a place of order. In parallel, an organized trade on the streets was informally built, similar to an alternative supply demand, which was fundamental for the city’s impoverished population.

This alternative supply was formed by warehouses that were spread throughout the poor and unprivileged neighborhoods and included pubs, bakeries, butcheries, import houses and grasslands, patisseries, fruit commerce, vegetables, green groceries, the so-called soup kitchen, which served cheap meals (MARTINS, 2010MARTINS, V. Mercados urbanos, transformações na cidade: abastecimento e cotidiano em Campinas, 1859-1908. Campinas: Editora da Unicamp, 2010.), and thousands of hawkers who rambled through Campinas’s streets.

Those smaller trades were characterized by the mobility and autonomy of their members, formed mostly by an extensive legion of poor people comprising immigrants, slaves, and free afro-descendants who organized themselves as the self-employed.

Therefore, to “make a living,” the “street owners,” which is how the downtrodden of Campinas were known, traversed the city selling a variety of food on their trays, trolleys, and wagons, carrying the “sounds, colors, tastes, and smells of daily life with movement and spices” (MARTINS, 2010MARTINS, V. Mercados urbanos, transformações na cidade: abastecimento e cotidiano em Campinas, 1859-1908. Campinas: Editora da Unicamp, 2010., p. 241). Therefore, they fed the impoverished people from Campinas, who were mostly workers dependent on the popular and cheap food circuit. At that point, one could notice the lines of the popular food circuit that served as a shelter for the segregated and marginalized people, representing the possibility of resistance in a city that has been characterized by inequity since its inception.

Penteado (2012)PENTEADO, A. Urbanização e usos do território: as crianças e adolescentes e situação de rua na cidade de Campinas/SP. Dissertação (Mestrado em Geografia). Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Instituto de Geociências- IG, Unicamp, 2012. highlights the existence of a “sanitary urbanization from Campinas” between 1889 and 1908, which strengthened the normative centralization of food commerce and categorized itinerant trade as a hindrance to freedom of movement and a problem for the health of the city and its people. A social restructuring project was implemented and changed the historically biased conception of Campinas, as that which pursues the transformation of its space precludes the deprivation of social beings.

During this period of strong contrasts between regulation and informality in the food trade, hunger persisted throughout the city and was intensified by the economic order, which was essentially, “an economy aimed at extensive and large-scale tropical feedstock and tropical goods production fated to export trade” (PRADO JR., 1945PRADO JR., C. História Econômica do Brasil. São Paulo: Editora brasiliense, 1945., p. 207).

Despite the country’s strong economic growth, as a result of these international trades, especially those occurring in São Paulo state, the yellow fever epidemic in Campinas, which had shut down the city in 1889, 1890, 1892, 1896 and 1897, further aggravated the need for food (LAPA, 2008b______. Os excluídos: contribuição à história da pobreza no Brasil (1850-1930). São Paulo: Editora da USP; Campinas: Editora da Unicamp, 2008b.; MARTINS, 2010MARTINS, V. Mercados urbanos, transformações na cidade: abastecimento e cotidiano em Campinas, 1859-1908. Campinas: Editora da Unicamp, 2010.). Only the starving people who could not escape were left behind; thus, the epidemic made the presence of hunger more visible. Popular activities related to the sale of food closed, mostly due to the lack of food supply in the city since farmers did not deliver their wares for fear of the plague (MARTINS, 2010). That is, by ending their activities, the itinerant trade and the remaining food establishments that provided access to food at low prices in the streets of Campinas left the poorest and most needy of the urban population in a position of significant vulnerability.

To increase societal control and guarantee the hygiene of the space, the worst food supply crisis occurred during this period and significant interventions were initiated to facilitate the city’s recovery. (BAENINGER, 1992BAENINGER, R. Espaço e tempo em Campinas: migrantes e expansão do pólo industrial Paulista. Dissertação (Mestrado em Sociologia), IFCH, UNICAMP, Campinas, 1992.; LAPA, 2008aLAPA, J. R., do A. A cidade: os cantos e os antros: Campinas 1850-1900. São Paulo: Editora da USP; Campinas: Editora da Unicamp, 2008a., 2008b; MARTINS, 2010MARTINS, V. Mercados urbanos, transformações na cidade: abastecimento e cotidiano em Campinas, 1859-1908. Campinas: Editora da Unicamp, 2010., PENTEADO, 2012PENTEADO, A. Urbanização e usos do território: as crianças e adolescentes e situação de rua na cidade de Campinas/SP. Dissertação (Mestrado em Geografia). Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Instituto de Geociências- IG, Unicamp, 2012.; SANTOS, 2002SANTOS, A. C. Campinas, das Origens ao Futuro: Compra e Venda de Terra e Água e um Tombamento na Primeira Sesmaria da Freguesia de Nossa Senhora da Conceição das Campinas do Mato Grosso de Jundiaí (1732-1992). Campinas-SP: Unicamp, 2002.).

In a revelation of a social hygienic identity, the city, which was devastated by hunger and yellow fever, slowly recovered over the last decade of the nineteenth century. Therefore, the epidemic period was marked by the worst food and urban crisis of Campinas, which was “felt in the rearrangement of the organization and occupation of the space, within the circulation discipline, in new architectonical directions, and even in the collective and individual behaviors” (LAPA, 2008aLAPA, J. R., do A. A cidade: os cantos e os antros: Campinas 1850-1900. São Paulo: Editora da USP; Campinas: Editora da Unicamp, 2008a., p. 266) of the city. Therefore, hunger and urbanization accompanied one another, marking both the history and the space of Campinas.

The densification of the urban food context: from the Mercadão of food to transformation projects in the city’s core (1909 - 1930)

The epidemic period aggravated the food crisis and motivated a series of urban renewals stemming from a socially hygienic identity. For example, the third yellow fever epidemic (1892) brought the urban supply function of Mercado Grande to a close; however, the Mercado das Hortaliças was too small to concretize the additional sales, revealing yet again the necessity of building a new fixed place to support the food trend that had grown in the city, which had now recovered from the fever and the resultant hunger.

Although the assurance of food in the city was of public interest, the new market building was constructed using private funds (MARTINS, 2010MARTINS, V. Mercados urbanos, transformações na cidade: abastecimento e cotidiano em Campinas, 1859-1908. Campinas: Editora da Unicamp, 2010.). Thus, a lucrative business vision, which introduced commercial cruelty into the city in which hunger was widespread, was involved in the food trade regulations; this contradictory characteristic was also present in other urban renewals throughout the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.

The first building suggested for the new market was constructed by the entrepreneur, Luiz Nogueira, who planned the Mercado’s construction at Largo Correa Mello (the current Praça Carlos Gomes surroundings). The first project blueprint exceeded the area that had been granted for construction, despite its having attained a propitious ruling from the Chamber Legislative Committee, the Hygiene Committee, and Public Works and Finance (MARTINS, 2010MARTINS, V. Mercados urbanos, transformações na cidade: abastecimento e cotidiano em Campinas, 1859-1908. Campinas: Editora da Unicamp, 2010.).

To enable the construction to continue, concessions were soon made to expropriate various lands and buildings - around Largo Correa Mello (between Benjamin Constant and Barreto Leme streets).

Obviously, the expropriations were followed by ancillary costs, as well as strong speeches about local cleanliness that deepened the embourgeoisement: “The ‘city’s pride’ could not be surrounded by ‘casinholas,’ which transgressed on the most elementary aesthetic morals, announced the hygienic Campinas” (CIDADE DE CAMPINAS, Nº 2.117, 14/4/1908 apudMARTINS, 2010MARTINS, V. Mercados urbanos, transformações na cidade: abastecimento e cotidiano em Campinas, 1859-1908. Campinas: Editora da Unicamp, 2010., p. 348).

Following a new concession for the space to build the Mercadão, which is still how it is popularly known, the City Council gave a tax exemption to stall renters; hawkers then parked in their spaces and the commerce monopoly in the Campinas’s food markets was thus legitimized.

According to Martins (2010)MARTINS, V. Mercados urbanos, transformações na cidade: abastecimento e cotidiano em Campinas, 1859-1908. Campinas: Editora da Unicamp, 2010., after the Mercadão opened in 1908, other arrangements to beautify and organize the streets were made for the city’s central areas. Utility poles from Companhia Campineira de Iluminação e Força (Company of Lightning and Energy of Campinas) were installed, changing the city’s commercial traffic, industrial activities, and prompting an influx of many workers, who became more dependent on the meals of street food.

Another urban supply perspective also developed regarding the Campinas urban core and evolved alongside the market; the railway Funilense was the mode of transport for the food, and connected the fields in which it was grown and the city core. Thus, it was characterized as an important distribution center (MARTINS, 2010MARTINS, V. Mercados urbanos, transformações na cidade: abastecimento e cotidiano em Campinas, 1859-1908. Campinas: Editora da Unicamp, 2010.) and extensively and dynamically transformed Campinas’s urban core. The railway had an important role in this centrality, since the railway lines of Funilense, Paulista, and Mogiana, along with other local railways, allowed connections between Mercadão and many cities of the São Paulo countryside, which were located south of Minas Gerais, Goiás, and Mato Grosso.

The urban transformations around the Mercadão were aligned with the corporate trade and its use of the city that was guided by the materialism. Which helped the invisibility of everything that was considered “not modern”.

The Mercadão building once again reaffirmed the identity that had sprung from the social hygienic movement, which was driven by changes to the urban setting. For example, in the years that followed, construction was again coordinated by Sarturino de Brito in Campinas city. Among these new projects, a new intersection was inaugurated, along with a canal, an avenue, and a park called the Avenida Orosimbo Maia; this thoroughfare became an important avenue that supported significant food commerce. Identified as a beltway, the avenue was extremely important in its role of connecting the downtown area with closer neighborhoods, as well as supporting the further circulation of urban culture (SANTOS, 2002SANTOS, A. C. Campinas, das Origens ao Futuro: Compra e Venda de Terra e Água e um Tombamento na Primeira Sesmaria da Freguesia de Nossa Senhora da Conceição das Campinas do Mato Grosso de Jundiaí (1732-1992). Campinas-SP: Unicamp, 2002.).

The industrial phase of Campinas is shown inside an urban transformation context which focused on the food supply of the city that was growing (GEIGER, 1963GEIGER, P. A evolução da rede urbana. Rio de Janeiro: INEP, 1963.). The arrival of industry in Campinas coincided with the coffee crisis, which began in 1929, and was on equal footing with the largest real estate capital investments, which were mostly located in the center of the city, where the most significant changes occurred.

According to Santos (2002SANTOS, A. C. Campinas, das Origens ao Futuro: Compra e Venda de Terra e Água e um Tombamento na Primeira Sesmaria da Freguesia de Nossa Senhora da Conceição das Campinas do Mato Grosso de Jundiaí (1732-1992). Campinas-SP: Unicamp, 2002., p. 278), during this period, Campinas’s center was represented by a “progress antithesis” towards the elite, which condensed the leading urban ideology; the narrow streets and archaic buildings could not support the demands of the circulation occurring in the new local urban center. For that reason, another downtown renewal began.

Although a series of infrastructural and urban equipment changes were in progress to address the urban demands of the Campinas elite, following an epidemical phase and a serious food shortage, many elite families renounced the situation (SOMBINI, 2008SOMBINI, E. A. W. Habitação e projetos contemporâneos de refuncionalização de centros urbanos: o centro histórico de Campinas. Relatório final de Iniciação Científica, IG, Unicamp, 2008.), thereby prompting workers, immigrants, and ex-slaves to occupy empty buildings on downtown area (LUCHIARI, 2006b apud SOMBINI, 2008). Following this event, given the intensity of the urban food scenario, a period referenced as the urban core popularization began.

From Campinas’s urbanistic plans to the popularization of the urban food context (1931 - 2016)

The growing urban food situation occurred in the larger, more fluid context of the urban core and set the principal agenda for the Urbanistic Plans of 1930 and beyond. Campinas expanded its new and different remodeling projects and ghettos formed as a consequence, thus requiring the fulfillment of the idealistic notion related to the fluidity and rapid integration with the urban core in the implementation of all the city’s modern projects.

As a consequence of industrialization and urban planning, the related growth was identified by Geiger (1963GEIGER, P. A evolução da rede urbana. Rio de Janeiro: INEP, 1963., p. 257) through the emergence of new neighborhoods in Campinas, such as Bonfim, Ponte Preta, Guanabara, and Parque Industrial e São Bernardo, among others industrial sectors comprising the city.

Certainly, the new city arrangement resulted in connections between the Urbanistic Plans of Campinas city (PREFEITURA MUNICIPAL DE CAMPINAS, 2006), and the widespread ghettoization process of low-income communities (BEGERES BISNETO, 2009BEGERES BISNETO, V. Formação territorial e planejamento urbano: por um uso mais solidário do território de Campinas/SP. Dissertação (Mestrado em Geografia), FFLCH, USP, São Paulo, 2009.; CANO; BRANDÃO, 2002CANO, W.; BRANDÃO, A. C. (coords.). A Região Metropolitana de Campinas urbanização, economia, finanças e meio ambiente. Campinas: Unicamp, 2002.; FONSECA, 2014; MESTRE, 2009MESTRE, A. P. Os usos do território e as políticas urbanas: o Jardim Campo Belo no processo de fragmentação da cidade de Campinas. Dissertação (Mestrado em Geografia), IG, UNICAMP, Campinas, 2009.). Again, as evidenced by this relationship, the urbanization process of the Campinas territory is strongly marked by corporate interests, as well as a “cloistering mechanism and the impoverishment of the masses” (MESTRE; FONSECA, 2011, p. 33).

Between 1934 and 1970, the Campinas Urban Improvement Plan, which was also known as the Plano Prestes Maia, was accomplished. From a functionalist and hygienic theory perspective, it served the primary purpose of being the first radical downtown renewal in which the square block development was replaced by an elongated urban intervention (SANTOS, 2002SANTOS, A. C. Campinas, das Origens ao Futuro: Compra e Venda de Terra e Água e um Tombamento na Primeira Sesmaria da Freguesia de Nossa Senhora da Conceição das Campinas do Mato Grosso de Jundiaí (1732-1992). Campinas-SP: Unicamp, 2002.).

The Plan also entailed the opening of two large avenues, Francisco Glicério and Campos Salles, which became important roads supporting the main popular food commerce; the plan also prompted the widening of some of its major roads, which were Dr. Moraes Salles, Senador Saraiva avenue, and Miguel Vicente Cury overpass. A countless number of old buildings, such as Igreja do Rosário, were also demolished. In alignment with the international guidelines of Carta de Atenas (1933) these constructions followed a technical and scientific urbanism standard that prioritized investments focused on the construction of infrastructure over those targeting embellishment.

According to Fonseca (2014) and based on studies by Mestre (2009)MESTRE, A. P. Os usos do território e as políticas urbanas: o Jardim Campo Belo no processo de fragmentação da cidade de Campinas. Dissertação (Mestrado em Geografia), IG, UNICAMP, Campinas, 2009., Begeres Bisneto (2009), and Baeninger (1992)BAENINGER, R. Espaço e tempo em Campinas: migrantes e expansão do pólo industrial Paulista. Dissertação (Mestrado em Sociologia), IFCH, UNICAMP, Campinas, 1992., due to the flooring of Rodovia Anhanguera (1948), and the spreading of the area, the city of Campinas was marked by an intense occupation of land and the settlement of industries near the highway.

The old coffee city was modernized through the industrial support of the 1960s and the 1970s. In this new configuration, the urban core expanded vertically to attend to a “growing demand for dwellings and mostly commercial buildings” (JOLY, 2002JOLY, C. Refuncionalização e o patrimônio arquitetônico: o centro histórico de Campinas. Monografia (Graduação em Geografia), DGEO/IG, UNICAMP, Campinas, 2002., p. 34), which was certainly implied by workers’ historical fight for food outside their home, which was far from the workplace.

Between 1960 and 1970, Campinas experienced some of the most significant population growth in São Paulo state (surpassing the annual 5%), which increased the urban sprawl. During this period, specifically between 1940 and 1960, the real estate valuation caused an exodus of large numbers of those from the deprived population and forced them to move to less expensive areas of the city, thus initiating a ghettoization phase (FONSECA, 2014).

The poverty in the city persisted and increased throughout the following decades; it was equally reinforced by the city’s restructuring movements, along with an expansion in real estate investment.

During the 1970s, Campinas city was characterized by a technical-scientific informational milieu (SANTOS, 1996______. A natureza do espaço. Técnica e tempo, razão e emoção. São Paulo: Hucitec, 1996.) period during which the city began a metropolitanization process (CANO; BRANDÃO, 2002CANO, W.; BRANDÃO, A. C. (coords.). A Região Metropolitana de Campinas urbanização, economia, finanças e meio ambiente. Campinas: Unicamp, 2002.); new approaches to organizing existing territories and a complex social structuring characterized by inequity were implemented, allowing the coexistence of different capital markets involving technology, organization, and work (SANTOS, 2008). These are the most important urban economic circuits and are still characteristic of this region of the city today.

Along with this process, between 1971 and 1990, the second plan for restructuring was implemented in the city: Plano Preliminar de Desenvolvimento Integrado de Campinas (PPDI) (The Preliminary Integrated Development Plan of Campinas). New roads were created; “the bus station network that crosses the city has been amplified by remodeling Rodovia Anhanguera into a dual highway and initiating the construction of Rodovia Dom Pedro I, Bandeirantes, and Santos Dumont” (FONSECA, 2014, p. 37).

The public and private investments of this period, such as those focused on supermarkets, malls, and standard gated communities, were developed along the highways by investors and were now considered the “new urban core,” which allowed the old center for popular commercial activities, especially food services and other unofficial business activities, to fall to those in the low-income classes (JOLY, 2002JOLY, C. Refuncionalização e o patrimônio arquitetônico: o centro histórico de Campinas. Monografia (Graduação em Geografia), DGEO/IG, UNICAMP, Campinas, 2002.).

In fact, between the 1970s and 1980s, an impressive number of inhabitants who could not save money from their salaries to purchase houses of their own, moved once more to the city’s ghettos (FONSECA, 2014). As such, the population in the ghetto increased and, consequently, the pursuit of popular consumption in the urban core grew as well; the necessity of a cheap meal circuit to feed the growing underprivileged working-class increased.

Regulated and alternative markets that sold food always followed the city’s growth and significantly influenced the urbanization process. The enlargement and growth of the city owing to its respective ghettoization phases stimulated a growth in the ready-made meal market, which was mostly relegated to the urban core since most people working in the city were unable to have meals in their residences. For workers in an industrial city, eating at home in the middle of the workday was, and still is, nearly impossible.

The area became concentrated with more activities characterized by low technology, organization, and capital, and was essentially populated by fixed and itinerant sellers who served ready-made meals at a low cost. This marked the beginning of the city’s popularization and the strengthening of alternative food markets on the streets. Among the many other consequences of the urban transformations, a market selling cheap meals in the downtown area was thus established and shaped the popularization of Campinas’s urban food context, which continues today.

The popular commerce of food was concentrated on Avenida Orosimbo Maia and Avenida Francisco Glicério, and on roads near the Terminal Central, Rua Treze de Maio, and Rua Alvares Machado; these places are home to the largest number of food establishments in the downtown area.

Due to the popularization of the food market, approximately 100 establishments are now located in this area and include both bars and restaurants. They primarily serve drinks, roasted and fried fast food, sandwiches, açaís, pastries, and the so-called “set meal.”

Regarding the “Serviços Ambulantes de Alimentação”, Campinas has 342 establishments located on its sidewalks today, comprising a total of 93 stalls, 72 trailers, 149 food tents, and 28 collapsible tents (ACIC - Associação Comercial e Industrial de Campinas). Trailers and collapsible tents are resources for the underprivileged, enabling their permanence in the downtown area. Once they are “fixed” to a particular area, it is more difficult for them to move; thus, their position grants them usage of a given space even without the city’s permission. In summary, even though they are informal and unregistered by SETEC (Campinas General Technical Services) these establishments are concentrated in the downtown area and have the fundamental function of sustaining pedestrians through the food they provide.

Most of the fixed establishment owners and foodservice hawkers confirm that the downtown area is a propitious place to live and ensures the daily survival of the city’s poor people; thus, the region has intensified as a reference point for the following: (i) possible employment for a segment of the poor in a metropolis setting characterized by extreme inequality; and (ii) the large numbers of workers that surround and depend on the city for their daily food.

As a result, configured by the network of popular food establishments, the urban food context plays a fundamental role in the city’s formation and is fortified by the work of underprivileged citizens, as well as the consumption that surrounds and dynamizes the city center. This situation is historically demarcated by the cooperation between workers and consumers and the conflict that exists between the city’s various organizational demands; yet, it still serves as a haven for urban Campinas’s large population of starving people.

Conclusions

The organization of food commerce has occurred as part of the development of Campinas city through an alternative and popular circuit, which was a condition and result of the structural poverty (SANTOS, 2000_______. Por uma outra globalização. Rio de Janeiro: Record, 2000.) that has persisted in the city since its inception.

As discussed, the city has a spatial configuration marked by intensive segregation, a fundamental aspect of the Brazilian socio-spatial development process (SANTOS, 2008_______. Da Totalidade ao Lugar. São Paulo: Edusp, 1ª edição, 2008.) that has historically been characterized by selective waves of gentrification in urban spaces.

Granted, the hunger of Campinas inhabitants has its roots in urban rationality. Therefore, it may be considered an example of a hunger that is the result of human activities (CASTRO, 1961CASTRO, J. Geopolítica da fome. Ensaios sobre os problemas de alimentação e de população no mundo. Rio de Janeiro: Editora da Casa do Estudante, 1961.). The existence of urban poverty in Campinas stands out, or stated differently, “aspects of poverty are directly connected to urbanization” (SANTOS, 1978SANTOS, M. Pobreza Urbana. São Paulo: Edusp, 1978, p. 78) as the “Brazilian process of urbanization is strongly connected with poverty, placed specially in the big city” (SANTOS, 1993, p. 11).

Our historical reconstitution begins with the period extending from 1850 until 1908, characterizing the inception of Campinas’s urban food scenario. It references the agrarian capital’s accumulation process and the beginning of growth in the contradictory city, which, on the one hand, materialized during the urbanization process, as evinced by its economic strength and obvious gentrification resulting in the construction of three urban food markets. On the other hand, within the city, the poorest segment of the population lives in routine misery and hunger.

The final period consists in a reflection on a city devastated by a Yellow Fever epidemic. Plague aggregates itself in such a way that hunger mostly affects the poor, who are locked in the city and experiencing the worst food crises in its history: commerce lack of food trade defined the urbanization process of Campinas which was followed by the alarming food scarcity.

The last two periods - from 1908 to 1990 - have the most geographical events: the opening of the fourth urban market in downtown, which is the popular “Mercadão,” and implementation of Urbanistic Plans, that defines a new urbanization process in Campinas. This is evident even now through the deep inequality within the city’s socio-spatial configuration, which reveals an association between the countless urban transformations in Campinas and its ghettoization process. At present, in addition to reflecting on the consolidation of structural poverty, planning, and therefore, the history of a corporate and fragmented city (SANTOS, 1990______. Metrópole Corporativa Fragmentada: O caso de São Paulo. São Paulo: Hucitec, 1990.), this research has allowed an analysis of the articulated growth between the city’s center and the ghettos; consequently, its densification and the popularization of Campinas’s urban food situation are revealed.

As a result, the city’s growth alongside its respective ghettoization has been stimulated and popularized, resulting in a growing market of cheap, ready-made meals in the urban core since eating at home in the middle of the workday was, and still is, nearly impossible for many people.

Comprising popular networks of bars, restaurants, and hawkers since its inception, during its growth and consolidation, this market has been formed and fortified, especially through the consumption habits of the vulnerable workers who have surrounded and improved the city center. The urban food context, which is delimited by workers and consumer cooperation, as well as conflict between the demands of the city’s gentrification process, is a historical shelter for the starving people of Campinas’s urban world, revealing the marks of time that remain in its geographical space.

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Publication Dates

  • Publication in this collection
    01 May 2023
  • Date of issue
    2019

History

  • Received
    05 June 2018
  • Accepted
    18 Apr 2019
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