O papel da cidade de Viçosa-MG na rede urbana : a especialização funcional de uma cidade média mineira

• Autor(a) principal: Carvalho, André Simplício
• Data de Publicação: 2014
• Tipo de documento: Dissertação
• Idioma: por
• Título da fonte: Repositório Institucional da Universidade Federal do Espírito Santo (riUfes)
• Texto Completo: http://repositorio.ufes.br/handle/10/3614
• topic: Urban system; Middle-sized cities; Rede urbana; Cidades médias; Geografia; Universidade Federal de Viçosa; Geografia; Cidades e vilas; Viçosa (MG) - Geografia; 91

System is the name given to cite any form composed for several elements working together through connections, so this name is used to join names and concepts in various area of knowledge. In geography, this does not occur differently. The geographical networks are given the denomination links made in space articulated by points, mainly used to refer to material networks but also can use to refer intangible or abstract networks, depending on the object of research and the adjective adopted. The urban system is one of these networks, inevitably material, but increasingly virtual that are studied by geographers for at least eighty years. Urban systems are composed by the set of cities, each one with a centrality, taken as points, and the connections between them, highways, waterways, airways etc. Different cities, however that may be similar to each other, have different types and degrees of centrality, power of attraction in the system, reflecting a singular region of influence, which changes from time to time and as each territory in which the urban system is set. The centrality and networks of cities are constantly changing; constantly require updating, adding new questions to the urban systems and centralities study; especially when considering such a vast and complex as Brazil. Thus we propose here to study Viçosa’s specific centrality, in Minas Gerais state, Brazil. Through a plural historical and current overview of the city and its region, systematized in several maps and illustrated with many pictures, we can notice the changes in quality and intensity of the centrality of this city that we now understand as middle-sized, or intermediate, in the Minas Gerais urban system. From a rural area without any importance this city becomes important center for coffee production, chalking up political gains in this period (1850-1930); losing its luster for about seventy years and then re-emerging as a specialized location, at the turn of the twentieth century for XXI; offering services, especially related to higher education and the production of science and technology. This new centrality, unlike what often happens, was not the result of an inherent natural resource of the territory and so little by the corporative action, but was climbed mainly by State action that build there the foundations of a functional specialization, through the public university.