Especificidade em uma urbanização tardia: o município de Macaíba-RN e sua relação com a Região Metropolitana de Natal

Abstract

This study aims to analyze the use of the territory of Macaíba, highlighting the structuring of the territory and its insertion in the recent metropolitan dynamics. For this, we chose to start from Milton Santos' understanding of the category of geographic analysis of territory used as a fundamental element to understand the structuring of territory, seeking to understand the city in the configuration of territory. This understanding understands space as a product of the movements of social-spatial relations in time. Space is defined, then, as an inseparable, dialectical, and contradictory set of objects and actions that conform the territorial configuration. In this sense, the research instruments used were the literature review regarding the theoretical discussions on social space and the spatial theory of Milton Santos. In a continuous act, the systematic bibliographical research to identify the theoretical referential that deals with the municipality of Macaíba, seeking to understand the expansion movement of the city and the territorial configuration. Subsequently, the documentary research with the survey of secondary data allowed the cartographic elaboration that allowed understanding the configuration of the territory of Macaíba and the present flows. This cartography encompasses the possibility of understanding the consolidation process of the urban-metropolitan space and the economic flows on a regional scale. Finally, the text points out that the process of consolidation of the urban-metropolitan configuration was influenced, in addition to the industrial sector, by the dynamics of the incorporation of lots in the urban space and, more recently, by the implementation of teaching, research and extension activities that come from the initiatives of Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Norte and Parque Científico e Tecnológico do Rio Grande do Norte.