Past and present of popular housing and self-building spaces in the city of Campina Grande - PB

Abstract

This article is a reflection on housing and self-built spaces in the city of Campina Grande. This theme can be approached from several starting points: housing as a right, housing as use value/exchange value, housing as a place, housing x family income, among others. From some of these biases, the text discusses the reality of the city taking into account the historical process of production of urban space, from the origin and maintenance of popular settlements in the city, in addition to the necessary approach to self-construction, that is, the construction of houses by the families themselves. The article intends to analyze the problems related to housing in Campina Grande, considering the historical housing production through self-construction, as well as the current nuances of this reality. To this end, with a view to an approach that considers the spatial and temporal dimensions, surveys and bibliographical/documental analyzes were carried out on the production of precarious settlements in the city, in addition to field work (with survey and analysis of variables) in some neighborhoods of Campina Grande. The reflection takes place, among others, in the light of the agents that produce urban space (CAPEL, 1974; CORRÊA, 1993, 2011), in view of the importance of excluded social agents, as producers of urban space through self-construction, as well as the State as one of the main agents responsible for the perpetuation of housing-related problems in the analyzed space.