Impacts of violence and insecurity in the city of Fortaleza-Ceará: from the self-segregation of the elites to the impositions of organized crime in the periphery

Abstract

Rising rates of violence and the perception of insecurity that permeates the city of Fortaleza favor the consolidation of the process of socio-spatial fragmentation, which manifests itself in different ways in the contradictory spaces of the Ceará metropolis. This scenario, evidenced in the capital, finds in the expansion of violence and urban insecurity, a variable capable of influencing, in an orchestrated and conflicting way, multiple interests and impacting on the socio-spatial dynamics of the city. In this sense, this article aims to analyze the different impacts of the increase in violence and insecurity in the city of Fortaleza. To this end, a survey of secondary data was carried out, based on homicide data, in addition to an interdisciplinary bibliographical review that contextualizes the process of socio-spatial fragmentation and addresses the expansion of violence in the metropolis of Ceará in the last decade. The results point to the consolidation of the process of socio-spatial fragmentation, intensified by the residential self-segregation of the middle and upper income strata, a phenomenon intrinsically related to the profitable exploitation of "insecurity" by real estate agents. At the same time, on the periphery, the concentration of violence rates and the impositions and restrictions established by organized crime are worsening.