Riverside territories in Recife-PE: to whom do these pieces of spaces belong?

Abstract

Recife, due to the peculiarity of its urban location, has large extensions of riverside areas. These areas have always been used in the course of the historical-territorial formation of the urbanization of the city. It is evident that, in a class society, all areas are occupied and appropriated according to the historical vicissitudes inherent to the permanent process of economic valorization of space. The central main of this writing is to reflect on the belonging of territories built in riverside areas as pieces delimited, also, by segments of the working class throughout the urbanization of the city. We operationalized the reflection through three procedural methods: historical-territorial characterization of the social use of riverside areas through a review of the literature on the subject; rescue of conflicts and resistance struggles of the working class in these areas through field work and empirical knowledge of the phenomenon; and outline of a plan to overcome the problem addressed, by listening to the riverside populations and consulting the urban legislation based on an environmental nature. We arrived at the general conclusion that class consciousness and permanent social pressure on public institutions that deal with urban administration are essential for the working class to conquer its right to the surroundings.