THE ROLES OF SMALL TOWNS IN THE CURRENT CONTEXT OF BRAZILIAN URBAN NET: AN ESSAY ABOUT THE REGION OF AMUSEP

Abstract

The present paper intended to discuss the redefinition of small cities’ part in present context of Brazilian urban net. For this study was adopted as a geographical cutting the municipalities that integrate the Associação dos municipios do setentrião paranaense – AMUSEP. Considering  the insertion of the country in the industrialization process and the modernization of the agriculture, especially from the decade of 1970, was noticed that small cities established by colonizing companies in the example of CNTP/CMNP from the decade of 1930, initially planned to perform roles of centrality giving support to rural production, had their central functions modified with the decrease of the demands for services and products coming from rural, passing, so, by a refunctioning of their roles in regional urban net. For characterization of refunctioning  process occurred in the study area,  the cities of Paiçandu and Mandaguaçu are used as an example , because them present characteristics that resemble to other cities that have the same roles.