Sustentabilidade urbana: reflexões sobre a expansão urbana na borda sul de João Pessoa (PB)

Abstract

The present research questions whether the recent process of urban expansion in the southern edge of João Pessoa – defined as the study area –, based on current urban and environmental legislation, has occurred in accordance with the principles that guide the concept of sustainable city – sustainable mobility, a friendly relationship with nature, balance between urban uses and functions etc. It also questions which weaknesses and threats to urban sustainability can be identified in the area, and what is its relationship with the process in question. The thesis defended is that the referred process has occurred based on legislation that are not connected with the mentioned principles, and whose application and control are not fully implemented by the government; and, also, that the weaknesses and threats to urban sustainability in the area stem mainly from the urbanization mode disseminated from the end of the 1990s in Brazil, in which the logic of discontinuity in the process of urban expansion led to an accelerated and dispersed growth of cities, characterized by the predominance of lowcost housing, low construction standards and by the non-observance of environmental aspects in the urban structure. In this context, the expansion process is shaped, among other aspects, according to the action of various agents – development institutions, productive sectors, public management itself, in addition to the population, through associations and non-governmental organizations –, which based more on their own interests than on complying with legislation, dictate the way the city should grow. The study área, represented here by the neighborhoods of Gramame, Muçumagro and Barra de Gramame, is the empirical object of this study, having undergone a rapid process of alteration of its landscape, in the last three decades, particularly marked by the production of the Minha Casa Minha Vida Program (PMCMV) and by road and infrastructure works, that transformed it into a new location for the real estate sector. The objective is to identify weaknesses and threats – and also strengths and opportunities – related to the ongoing urban expansion process in the study area, throught the investigation and analysis of the legal and morphological aspects – which, in theory, should regulate and guide the referred process –, as well as the evaluation of aspects or urban sustainability related to the concept of sustainable city. For this purpose, a bibliographical research on the themes and object addressed was initially carried out. Then, a documentary research was carried out in legislation and municipal collections of the City Hall of João Pessoa (PMJP), public service concessionaires, Departamento de Estradas de Rodagens (DER), land registry office, as well as in Caixa Econômica Federal (particularly, related to the PMCMV) and Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia e Estatísticas (IBGE) databases. The extensive set of information obtained – referring to the evolution, urban expansion and legal frameworks, agents and strategies that have dictated changes in the urban landscape of the study area, determining its forms, as well as the aspects of urban sustainability that are impacted by such transformations (in particular, those related to the lan use and occupation) –, subsidized the elaboration of maps, tables and graphs that revealed the processes studied, contributing to the discussions held, and making it possible to analyze/evaluate the process of urban expansion in the area, confirming the hypotheses initially raised. It was proven that urban expansion has been developed based on legislations that are not, in fact, connected with the principles that guide the concept of sustainable city – although some analysed laws include them in their purposes –, mainly, because their application and control are not fully implemented by the government. Furthermore, it was also proved that most of the identified weaknesses and threats result from the urbanization mode adopted in the last three decades in Brazil, having been reproduced in the study area.