Com (nova) vista para o Rio Potengi: a atuação do mercado imobiliário no processo de verticalização da região administrativa norte de Natal/RN

Abstract

The distribution of infrastructure and urban public services in Brazilian cities is not carried out in a balanced or equitable way, which, in turn, generates a series of asymmetries in the quality of life and access to a fairer city. This general factor is aggravated by the preference of the residential real estate market (formal) for more profitable areas, directing its products to a solvable portion of the population. In the case of the city of Natal/RN, the recent growth and densification of the North Administrative Region - marked by areas of poverty - has brought new challenges, either by the arrival of new residential real estate products (vertical), or by the intense debate in the revision of the Director of the City that, among others, aims to expand the building limits of this region. With this, “we can admit that all cities are now subject to disruptive trends that affect more strongly the neighborhoods that were already in a situation of greater vulnerability in the previous phase. (RIBEIRO, 2018, p.239)”. Hence, through the concept that UN-HABITAT (apud PATRICK, 2014) calls “divided urban”, not being related only to the space fragmented by social inequalities, but taking into account that economic lines tend to coincide with social barriers, cultural and political. The objective of this work is to understand the role of the real estate market in the recent vertical formal residential production and socio-territorial effects in the north of Natal, between 2008 and 2021. For this, data analysis will be carried out through the construction of a Database data from vertical projects in the North Zone of Natal/RN and then georeferencing these projects. Interviews will also be carried out with representatives of the companies responsible for the construction of the projects, real estate agents and real estate buyers in vertical condominiums in the North region of Natal/RN. Therefore, we seek to answer, what role does the formal real estate market play in the densification of the "northern zone"? How does current Urban Planning condition or is conditioned by the arrival of these new actors? Thus, our Research Project asks: What is the role of the real estate market in the verticalization process and in the segregation of urban space in the Northern Region of Natal/RN?