Notes on the organization of the urban network in the northwest of Rio Grande do Sul

Abstract

The proposal of the text is to bring elements that contribute to the discussion of the concept of middle/intermediate city and the role played by these cities in the urban network. We used as an example the organization of the urban network in the state of Rio Grande do Sul, with emphasis on the Northwest region of the state. We emphasize the municipalities of Santa Rosa, Santo Ângelo and Ijuí, which are configured as poles of attraction of an environment that empties. We sought to examine the evolution of the urban network in the Northwest region from the following studies published by IBGE: Esboço preliminar da divisão do Brasil em espaços homogêneos e espaços polarizados (IBGE, 1967), Regiões Funcionais Urbanas (IBGE, 1972) and the studies Regiões de Influência das Cidades/REGIC of the years 1987, 1993 and 2007, highlighting the position of each city in the urban network over the four decades (1967-2007). New perspectives open in relation to the roles to be delineated by cities such as the examples cited in the text, which don’t constitute an urban agglomeration, but which exert strong polarization over the nuclei of its surroundings, reorganizing the urban network in the northwest of the State and incorporating elements to seize the complexity of the gaucho urban network. The urban roles they play and, which can be played, therefore derive from a broader structure, endorsed by the technical, territorial and social division of work, which stimulates new questions to consider the (re) organization of cities, the relations between city and region, as well as to understand the functions of these cities within the urban network.