Axes of urban expansion in “Juiz de Fora/MG”: new enterprises and centralities on BR-040

Abstract

The territorial expansion of Brazilian cities has been widely debated in Urban Geography, especially when this process takes place through the transformation of rural land into urban land and involves the articulation of agents of different natures. The main objective of this work is to analyze the processes of urban expansion and restructuring of the city, having as an empirical approach the axis of the BR-040 located in Juiz de Fora/MG. This city is an important node in the urban network of Minas Gerais and therefore it is relevant to study the new agents and centralities that arise there, because, in addition to marking ruptures in the social division of the city's space, it also engenders changes in the regional space. Methodologically, the work was supported by a survey of secondary data and bibliographical research. It was found that urban expansion in Juiz de Fora, as in most Brazilian cities, comes from a coalition of forces from different agents, with a focus on the State, which through the municipal level expands the urban perimeter and, by transforming rural land in urban land, corroborates the valorization of the area. Within this scope, it was possible to observe that this expansion belongs to the larger process of restructuring the city, as it is part of the changes in the social division of space, as well as emerging as a new centrality for the city and the region.