Contemporary Urbanization in South of Brazil: the city of Pelotas (a thesis 20 years later)

la ciudad de Pelotas (una tesis de 20 años después)

Abstract

The article discusses the contemporary urbanization and its empirical challenges in a medium-sized city in the South of Brazil, the city of Pelotas, Rio Grande do Sul state. We start from the conclusions of our doctoral thesis carried out in 2002. We will work on changes in the city's spatial production in the last twenty years and whether the trends verified in the thesis were confirmed. In the conclusions of the thesis, trends of urban dispersion, decentralization of services and socio-spatial fragmentation were already outlined. These trends were exacerbated in the first decades of the 21st century. Our analysis will come from authors of contemporary urbanization to analyze the different movements of spatial production in the city and their connections with global processes. What has been observed in the last twenty years is the complexification of urban space with the arrival of new agents, new processes and the production of a more fragmented and polarized urban space. Gated condominiums stand out, as well as a new urban ideology, with experiences of “new urbanism”, however, designed at very specific social groups. Finally, we must highlight the “post-pandemic” space, in which the decline of the historic center is evident.