São Paulo, city-region: constitution and development dynamics of the São Paulo macrometropolis
This article deals with the emergence of the city-region in São Paulo (Brazil), called ‘macrometropolis’, and highlights some of the challenges facing this new territorial or spatial configuration in terms of globalisation and governance. It also stresses the productive changes that gave rise to it and sheds light on the constituent dynamics of the macrometropolis at different scales. The article affirms that metropolitan problems can no longer be interpreted without taking into account the new determinants of the macrometropolis of São Paulo, which implies considering the interaction of the metropolis with other urban centres bearing social, economic and environmental singularities.
Trapped by the land? Change and continuity in the provision of social housing in Brazil
Despite economic growth, institutional strengthening, improved regulatory frameworks for urban land markets and availability of subsidized financial resources for social housing, Brazilian urban development policy has continued to face challenges in providing access to housing for low-income groups in general, and families earning up to three minimum salaries in particular. In this article, we argue that state spatial policies have been severely weakened by the lack of leverage over urban land markets. In that respect, the renewed rolled-out developmental state that has followed the neoliberalization of spaces in the 1990s, as reflected in the Statute of the City, the creation of the Ministry for Cities and the launch of federal housing finance programmes represent advances, but have not been able to trigger structural change in the production of urban space.
Coeficientes de Gini locacionais – GL: aplicação à indústria de calçados do Estado de São Paulo
This paper suggests a specific methodology to geographically locate and delimit local production systems, with an application to the leather and shoe industry in the state of Sao Paulo. The methodology consists on the elaboration of locational Gini coefficients (GL) for four-digit industries at municipal or micro region level from data in RAIS/MTE and PIA/IBGE. These GL coefficients indicate the industrial branches which are spatially concentrated. For the latter, location quotients (QL) by microregions in the state are used in order to identify local production systems within these industries. The QL data - combined with data on the share of the microregion in question in total industry employment and number of industrial plants - unequivocally show that there are three main local production systems in the leather and shoe industry in the state of Sao Paulo: Franca, Birigui, and Jau. Based on a field research work, these three local systems are briefly characterized in regard to their location, territorial extension, production structure and integration, local institutions, and forms of interfirm cooperation.