PRODUCTION OR URBAN SPACE AND RESTRUCTURING OF THE CITY:

Petrolina/PE in the context of contemporary globalization

Abstract

For some time now, globalization has been the focus of several studies in social sciences. The relations between urbanization and global transformations have been gaining notoriety in view of the role developed by cities in the contemporary world. Thus, the production of urban space contributes to elucidating the existing links between the urban, national and international scales, which reverberate through the urban morphology and the process of spatial structuring of the cities. This article analyzes the restructuring on the city reshaping of Petrolina (PE, Brazil) by seeking to situate it in the context of contemporary globalization. In this sense, the article argues that Petrolina has been being framed in a context of global restructuring with socio-spatial inequalities reproduction by spatial segregation and self-segregation and new housing forms, on the one hand, and by the installation of huge fixed capital of the multi-scalar retail and commercial sectors, on the other hand.  In this way, the historical geography of Petrolina's urbanization and the contemporary urban transformation are addressed in view of the links between globalization, urbanization and the dialectical relationship of urban center and periphery.