Urban planning and socio-spatial segregation: study on the effects of the expansion of gated communities on the production of urban space

Abstract

In the last centuries, the advent of the industry imposed severe transformations to the cities spaces. In response to the resulting problems from that process, but also in order to attend the demands of the capital, urban planning, exposed to a varied number of contradictions, gets increasingly integrated to the deflagrated processes of urbanization. It’s usual in Brazilian’s cities, especially in the large and medium cities, the existence of a close relation between the production of the urban space and the planning policies. In this context, gated communities arise and get associated to the expansion of the urban space, which produce lots of significant effects in the geographic space. This research aimed to analyze the consequences of the process of expansion of gated communities in the urban space, focusing on the effects related to the access to green areas and leisure spaces. In order to make it, starting by the theoric effort, this research proceeded to a comparative study between two sub-areas that belong to the same “census” sector: a gated community whose name is Bosque Ipanema, and a suburbia whose name is Jardim Botucatu, both located in Sorocaba/ SP. Photointerpretation, statistic resources and other associated methods were used, in order to produce and analyze the data. The results pointed to the existence of socioespatial segregation related to the structure differences observed between the sub-areas (Bosque Ipanema Gated Community and Jardim Botucatu Suburbia), segregation that is expressed especially in the access to the green areas and leisure spaces.