One periphery, two centers: the municipality of Praia Grande in the context of the formation of the macrometropolis of São Paulo at the beginning of the 21st century

Abstract

The present study has two main objectives: the first one is to discuss the impacts, consequences and demographic responses of the process of expansion and structuring of large urban agglomerations, with special focus on the case of Praia Grande/SP in the Metropolitan Area of Baixada Santista; the second one, to examine in more detail the nuances of population mobility and, in particular, migratory modalities (and their characteristics), as important elements of the peculiar regional insertion of that municipality as “simultaneous periphery” of two metropolitan areas. Based on the exhaustive use of census data, especially the Demographic Census of 2000 and 2010, this study presents an analysis of the growth and territorial expansion of Praia Grande emphasizing, at intra-municipal level, the role of the different migration modalities (intra-metropolitan and inter-regional). In addition, it seeks to associate them to different motivations from a detailed look at the sociodemographic profile of established flows. As main results of the work, it was observed that the role of Praia Grande as an area of metropolitan expansion of RMBS is supported by the growing intra-metropolitan migratory flows from the regional core, a reality that can also be observed in other metropolitan contexts. However, as a peculiarity of its process of occupation and regional insertion, a major part of this migration comes from outside the RMBS, more precisely, from the municipality of São Paulo, the center of another important metropolitan area, a fact that contributes to characterize Praia Grande as a “periphery with two centers”.

Key words
Metropolization; Urban expansion; Population mobility; Residential mobility; Socioespatial dynamic; Pherifery; Intrametropolitan migration; Internal migration