Formation of Macrometrópole in Brazil: Theoretical and Conceptual Construction of a Planning Region

Abstract

The macrometropolis, in Brazil, became a theoretical-conceptual object and a planning region between the 1980s and the 2010s. In this process, researchers and public managers dialogued with references and international matrices related to central places (Christaller, 1933/1966), the megalopolis (Gottmann, 1961), the global city-regions (Scott, Agnew, Soja & Storper, 2001) and the polycentric mega-city regions (Hall & Pain, 2006). The main objective of this text is to question the formation of the Brazilian macrometropolis within that framework and to evaluate how the same was accomplished in a planning region. Our object of analysis, originated in an extensive bibliographic and documental research, comprises the interpretations of the macrometropolis elaborated by researchers, and the planning actions for its development. The method applied is based on the historiographic interpretation of the overlapping of actions of the different disciplines (geography, economics, sociology, urbanism) that approached the macrometropolis in that period (Lepetit, 2016). Our conclusions point at a pioneering interpretation of the macrometropolis at a regional scale, parallel to an orthodox practice of planning actions.