Padrões emergentes : consumo, produção, ocupação e uso do espaço urbano Santa Cruz do Sul.

Abstract

Cities are the most palpable and perennial expression of human activity on the land. The phenomenon of the city´s physical borders expansion is a complex process that translates the constant interactions of several agents and promoters of the urban growth in the territory. Hence, the resulting configuration of these system interactions depends on the historical process, environmental attributes and the actual mode of production in a way that the city materializes these interacting forces and, at the same time, demands the elements necessary to its reproduction. Under the capitalist mode of spatial production, the urban growth phenomenon allows the analysis of these forces through the observation of emerging patterns inherent to the accumulation and capital circulation on the land. The city of Santa Cruz do Sul, due to its main economical activity – the tobacco production chain - is a relevant actor on global economy and share similarities with several other cities in the region such as the land configurational matrix, the utilization of immigrants on the colonization of the land and the main economic activity. The territorial conversion processes that allow the urban growth are analyzed in this research through the observation of the evolution of the single element that structures this tissue: the urban lot. This way, the analyses of the evolution of the patterns of land conversion through the production of new real estate products and its money values is an important factor to understand the urban growth phenomenon under the capitalist mode of spatial production and its impacts on the territory.