Evolução do processo de ocupação urbana do município de Nova Lima: um enfoque sobre a estrutura fundiária e a produção de loteamentos

Abstract

The present work is a study on the urban expansion of Nova Lima, city that is part of the Metropolitan Region of Belo Horizonte, capital of the state of Minas Gerais. From an historic perspective, the origins of the development of its urban space are treated. The relationship between society and economy, which are the main elements for the urban space configuration, are also investigated. Nova Lima can be seen as a peculiar remainder of the mining activity in Minas Gerais. Its land occupation process resulted from the gold extraction industry, that has been installed in the XIX century, and that was developed with British private capital. Since then, this activity has become the basis for the local economy. This dissertation is divided in two parts. The first part intends to identify the process through which the mining industry has become the main local economic activity. The preponderance of this activity in the construction of the urban space of the city is highlighted. This part, also establishes the relationship between the industrial capital and the conditions that made it possible to concentrate the land property in hands of the iron mining industry, which would explore the neighborhood of Nova Lima city through the following years. These elements have built the scenario for the urban expansion of Nova Lima. In fact, this urban expansion only begins after the 1950 decade. Among others, that decade also marks the beginning of the iron ore extraction, and the end of the British capital hegemony in Nova Lima, as the mining property and its industrial infrastructure was sold to an American mining group. This was also the decade of the industrialism in Minas Gerais. In the second part of this dissertation, the urban expansion of Nova Lima is analyzed through the identification of the factors that have turned the outskirts of the city into an attractive region for the real estate business since the 1950s. The objective was to investigate the role of both regional and local economies in the urban development of Nova Lima, by identifying the agents that played a role in the modification of the municipalitys spatial arrangement. The analyse have shown that the land property concentration and the great influence of the mining activity on the local economy - as well as on the economy of Minas Gerais - were the main factors for the urban expansion as well as for the establishment of new development alternatives for Nova Lima: the decrease of the importance of the mining activity in the area, along with the proximity with Belo Horizonte, transformed Nova Lima region into the main vector for Belo Horizonte's upper middle class housing expansion.