A demographic glance over the São Paulo Macrometropoli ’ s constitution: population flows, integration and complementarity 1 Abstract: The objective of this study is to analyze the formation of new urban morphologies from the demographic perspective, which is due not only to the formation of vectors of population expansion, but also, and mainly, by population flows, whether motivated by a change of residence or even by the development of daily activities. This article also seeks to contribute to the debate regarding the constitution of a new urban form, the São Paulo Macrometropolis, which still lacks better and broader discussion as well as theoretical and empirical delimitations. In a nutshell, we aim to show that this new urban form has a clear counterpart in the process of spatial redistribution and population mobility. Keywords: population spatial mobility, metropolization, city-region, migration, commuting. Introduction: The studies on metropolization in Brazil are numerous. Departing from different standpoints, they find great challengesand help understand not only the conditions but, above all, the consequences of the metropolization process on the economic, social, political and demographic dimensions. It is precisely over this last dimension that the present article focuses on. Over the last decades, new phenomena that have come to suggest the constitution of new forms of urban agglomeration have been observed. Different from the metropolises establishedduring the industrial developmental period, some metropolises in the beginning of the XXI century no longer present a compact form, butinstead are characterized by the dispersion and fragmentation of the urban sprawl i . They present great territorial extension and agglutinate municipalities of different sets and functionalities, as well as other urban agglomerations. This finding leads to some ponderings over the validity of traditional notions that seemed to reflect the way large agglomerations and human settlements are structured in Brazil, for example, the concepts of center-periphery, deconcentration, etc. More recently, new proposals have been presented and discussed in order to understand how the population reorganizes itself in space. Notions such as "new peripheries," "dispersed or diffused urbanization," "concentrated-deconcentration", among others, have been used to describe and understand more complex socio-spatial configuration, and particularly its consequences. It can be said that in the core of this discussion, emerges the debate about the so-named "São Paulo Macrometropolis ii ", territorialization proposed by EMPLASA (Sã o Paulo’s Company of Metropolitan Planning S.A.). Although this question had already been predicted by Souza (1978, apud SANTOS, 2005) in the late 1970 ’ s, there is no doubt that only more recently the theme has gained prominence and became a motive for 1 This work was funded by the Center for Metropolis Studies (CEBRAP, USP), process nº 2013 / 07616-7, Foundation for Research Support of the State of São Paulo (FAPESP). Opinions, hypotheses and conclusions or recommendations expressed are the responsibility of the author (s) and do not necessarily reflect the vision of FAPESP.
studies 2 regarding a better conceptualization over its meaning. Especially, as is the case of the article, regarding the questioning about the complementarity between the São Paulo Metropolitan Area and urban agglomerations surrounding it, three of them, Campinas, Baixada Santista and Paraíba Valley, today official MAs (Metropolitan Areas) (EMPLASA, 2012). In fact, the phenomenon observed today needs further studies and explanationso we canunderstand not only its territorial dimension, but also how it will evolve. There seems to be no doubt that what is observed today is still the harbinger of this process, therefore, it needs to be better understood and conceptualized. Such question appears as a great challenge – and also an opportunity – for all managers and planners, as well as for scholars of the subject. While this article does not intend to provide a broad discussion of the Macrom etropolis’ constitution, bearing in mind that this would require the analysis of multiple dimensions as pointed out by EMPLASA (2012), it does intend to contribute to this process from the demographic standpoint, especially where it concerns the flow of people within this new region. As it will be presented setting out from thepopulation mobility analysis, there are evidences suggesting complementarities between the regions involved, especially regarding land and labor markets, even though we should recognize that th ere are remaining doubts about this phenomenon’s specificities in relation to what is observed in metropolitan areas 3 . In this sense, this article, while broadened in its theoretical reflections, was motivated by some reflections and analysis carried out in two larger studies about theSão Paulo Macrometropolis (CUNHA, 2013 and 2014) and intends to contribute to this debate. Thus, based on data from the Demographic Censuses of 1991, 2000 and 2010, the objective of this work is therefore to analyze how this so-named São Paulo Macrometropolis and the regional complementarity among its metropolises are characterized in terms of demographic movements, focusing on the population spatial mobility phenomenon. 1.The constitution of new urban forms Regional studies have vanished due to the crisis of the 1970 ’ s and the strengthening of the theoretical perspective of structuralism with emphasis on the logics of the social production of urban space and its externalities. Even so, since Gottmann's (1961) 4 studies many researchers have focused their investigations in phenomena related to the transformations in metropolitan environments and their surroundings. However, it should be emphasized, in the last twenty years, due to the crises of capitalism, the so-named productive restructuring and the advent of globalization, researches that sought to understand socio-spatial transformations at the regional level, especially at the metropolitan scale, became effervescent and sought (and still seek) to understand the new logics of organization and structuring of metropolises. In this respect, important structural changes were observed around the world. They relate to the rise of 2 Moura’s (2009), Lencioni’s (2011ª, 2015) and Magalhães' (2008) studies, among others , try to comprehend the constitution of new urban forms in Brazilian territory. 3 The metropolitan areas approached in this paper are the ones that were instated until January 2014. They are: São Paulo Metropolitan Area (SPMA), Campinas Metropolitan Area (CMA) Baixada Santista Metropolitan Area (BSMA) and Paraiba Valley and Northern Coast Metropolitan Area (PVNCM 4 In 1961 Gottman studied megalopolises and their characteristics.
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