TITLE:
Prosperity and Social Inequalities: Montes Claros, How to Plan an Intermediary City in Brazil
AUTHORS:
Jean-Claude Bolay
KEYWORDS:
Intermediary Cities, Intermediation, Social Disparities, Spatial Fragmentation, Urban Planning, Urban Priorities, Montes Claros, Minas Gerais, Brasil
JOURNAL NAME:
Current Urban Studies,
Vol.4 No.2,
June
28,
2016
ABSTRACT: According to international statistics, nearly 50% of the world’s urban population live nowadays in
cities of less than 500,000 inhabitants. These small and medium-sized cities play a role of intermediation
between rural regions, local economy and more extensed urban networks, with three
spheres of influence: micro-regional, national and international. In many of these “intermediate
cities”, the main problem to reinforce them in their action is a lack of financial and human resources
for managing the city in a comprehensive way, in order to tackle the demographic and
spatial extension of these urban settlements, and avoid an increase of social segregation and
fragmentation of territory. The example of Montes Claros, in the State of Minas Gerais, Brazil,
helps us understand how a city of nearly 400,000 inhabitants, at the center of an economically
prosperous region, tackles these issues through a current process of urban planning, having to
take into account its historical, social and spatial context. Like most Brazilian and Latin American
cities, Montes Claros-which acts as a transit hub at the State and national levels-is a rapidly growing
intermediary city that has seen continued economic growth over the past two decades. However,
this industrial and business growth has not resulted in a more inclusive distribution of the
urban population. Considering the resulting growth from rural migration and new urban residents,
the urban area of Montes Claros remains fragmented territorially, with neighborhoods more or
less well equipped and served by public transport depending on the socio-economic status of their
inhabitants. The current process of urban planning raises many issues, among them three crucial
elements to improve in order to re-introduce planning as appropriate approach and instruments
able to guide the decision makers towards the future of a city and its region: a medium and
long-term vision for Montes Claros, its hinterland and the Northern region of Minas Gerais; a biased
perception of Montes Claros in which only the dense areas in the city center are taken into
account, with suburban areas still disconnected from the rest of the city and poorly integrated; a
participatory process of urban planning involving all stakeholder and population, from the diagnostic
till the definition of priorities in terms of urban policies, strategies and investments.