URBAN SPOLIATION, SOCIO-SPATIAL SEGREGATION, INDUSTRY AND COLLECTIVE TRANSPORT IN THE CITY OF BLUMENAU-SC IN THE 20TH CENTURY

Abstract

The process of urban formation and expansion of the city of Blumenau, during the last century, had different and significant socio-spatial repercussions for all social layers, but the impact and distribution of benefits were different, depending on the income level. Urban dispossession was continuous, from the beginning of the industrial period, beyond the 20th century, which was characterized, exceptionally from the 1970s onwards, by precariousness and urban segregation, sustained by modernization based on low wages. A certain homogeneity, perceived in the city's urban space until the mid-1960s, disappeared with the expansion of public transport lines, which reached the outskirts of the city, contributing to its expansion, reserving the central areas, already equipped and with good infrastructure for high-income groups. Further aggravating the situation of the popular classes, the process of productive restructuring, starting in the 1980s, made working conditions precarious and considerably reduced the wages of workers in Blumenau. The impoverishment of the population was directly reflected in the process of producing space, as the alternatives left to it, with regard to urban space and housing, were the search for cheaper land and housing, that is, those that were not of interest to speculation. real estate. This process of precariousness culminated in the worsening of socio-spatial segregation in Blumenau.