FROM NEW URBAN MESH TO CONSOLIDATED FABRIC: THE URBAN EXPANSION THROUGH THE REAL ESTATE PRODUCTION IN JOÃO PESSOA-PB

Abstract

This article aims to investigate recent changes in the configuration of a city's intraurban space by analyzing the performance of the real estate sector, in order to characterize the process of urban expansion in its territory at the beginning of the 21st century. The empirical object of the research is João Pessoa, a city located in the Northeast of Brazil that has shown fast and intense increase in real estate production in the last decade. To this end, a bibliographic research was carried out, concerning the theoretical and conceptual references, and a documentary research raised urban legislations referring to the expansion of João Pessoa's urban perimeter, economic data from the Relações Anuais de Informações Sociais and information from the “Pesquisa de Mercado do Setor de Lançamentos Imobiliários”, contracted by the João Pessoa Civil Construction Union, from 2006 to 2015. The information collected was systematized in maps, graphics and tables that supported the analysis of the urban expansion in João Pessoa, whose dynamics presented changes and permanencies, while the acting of the real estate sector expanded the urban fabric to characteristically rural areas and intensified the land occupation and the differentiation of uses in consolidated areas of the city.