Beyond urban boundaries: peri-urban areas and environmental issues

Abstract

The present article aims to divulge the preliminary results of a research project accomplished at the Federal University of Pernambuco - UFPE, MCT/CNPq 01/2007 announcement. Starting from the developmental priorities and political processes that involved land conversion, this study highlights the urbanization process and its effects on the environment in the municipality of Cabo de Santo Agostinho, in the southern region of Pernambuco. Urban-rural relations have conventionally been understood in terms of social and economic interaction. This relationship can be expressed in form of familiar strategies of livelihood that encompass the two sectors, flow of goods, capital and migration, or new forms of 'urbanization' that incorporate elements of both urban and rural. These approaches are useful insights, but they do not overlook the politics of rural-urban relations in terms of the policy choices that are made relating the use of land and the political processes that facilitated land conversion.