Elements of metropolization in the urban-regional periphery: Belém and the particularity of Amazon metropolization

Abstract

Exploring the tendency of the diffusion of space metropolization process in the different regions on Brazil, it is verified that this phenomenon is associated with changes in the productive dynamics that guide the configuration of metropolitan spaces, especially in peripheral regions of the national territory, such as the Brazilian Amazon. From the empirical reference about Belém Metropolitan Region, we identified that this space goes through an acceleration in the intensity of changes that, until the end of the 1990s, appeared to be of long duration and maturation. This acceleration is caused by the changes in the interregnum growth period between 2004 and 2012, when impacted the alteration of two aspects of its metropolitan expansion: alteration in the forms of urban land production and the valorization of the land rent from the real estate circuit, related to the entry of financialized capital and changes in the labor market that increased precariousness trends, even in the context of formal job creation. The methodological course of the research followed: i) bibliographical surveys of theoretical and empirical character; ii) fieldworks in the Belém metropolitan space; c) documentary survey of the highlighted variables; iii) collection of data and statistics that show the regional metropolization on Amazon.