(Re) arranjos e dinâmicas na rede urbana paraibana

Abstract

The debate about urban network, hierarchy and heterarchy has intensified in geographic science, mainly in the last decade of the 21st century. The theoretical discussions are based on the changes that have occurred in Brazilian cities due to the dissemination of contents related to the technicalscientific-informational environment, which starts to consolidate multi-scale relationships between urban centers. The studies of the Region of Influence of Cities (REGIC), published in 2007 and 2020, signal the changes in question through the analyzes constructed, so that they take into account the new roles played by Brazilian urban centers, which draws our attention the Regional Capitals (medium-sized cities), the Sub-Regional Centers and the Zone Centers. Paraíba, according to REGIC (2020), is one of the Brazilian states that has undergone relevant changes in the configuration of its urban network, with the multiplication of hierarchies and the redefinition of the roles and functions performed by cities, especially the Sub-Regional Centers and the Zone Centers. In view of this, we understand that, based on these transformations, new arrangements and dynamics are formed based on complementarity and sharing of functions, a fact that increases the levels of centrality of cities and it changes the game of hierarchical relations existing between them. Certain elements were responsible for the construction of new arrangements and dynamics and for the hierarchical reconfigurations, among which we highlight the role of the state as an agent of production of urban space, responsible for the implementation of public educational policies, which resulted in the multilocation of institutions higher and technical education, public and private; the multiplication of public and private health services; the advance of capitalism on different scales through the tertiary sector, which is now characterized by the multiplicity of commercial establishments and services of the most diverse branches and natures; and the dissemination of the technical-scientific-information environment, based on the dissemination of telephone and internet networks, as well as the financial sector, with the hypercapillarity of banks. Finally, and taking into account the above, we aimed with the construction of this thesis to understand the transformations that occurred in the urban network of Paraíba, in order to highlight the new arrangements and dynamics that condition the sharing and complementarity of functions between the cities face of the break of hierarchical relationships, resignifying them from the construction of multiscale relationships. To do so, we adopted as vectors of analysis the higher and technical education institutions, public and private, health services, public and private, commercial establishments and their multiple types, with emphasis on shopping centers, wholeretail, the associative networks and franchises; and the financial and informational sector based on mobile phone and internet networks, as well as branches and bank posts. For this, research procedures inserted within the qualitative and quantitative approach method were adopted, namely: application of forms and interviews, document analysis, research in official databases, exploratory fieldwork and mapping using the Arc Gis software . From these vectors, now analyzed, we can infer that the implementation of public and private institutions of higher and technical education, the expansion of public and private health services, the multiplication of commercial establishments in their multiple types and natures and the dissemination of the technical, scientific and informational contents associated with the internet and mobile telephony network and the branches and banking posts were responsible for the hierarchical reconfiguration of cities, since they make their structure more complex, expanding their roles and functions, placing them in previously unobserved relational positions and creating a set of relationships in a network that results in the conformation of arrangements and dynamics of a multiscale dimension.