Sustentabilidade e forma urbana em áreas centrais de cidades médias: uma análise de Franca (SP) e Uberaba (MG)

Abstract

The social and technological changes have brought several attributes to cities. As a result of an intense process of urban population growth, urban fabrics around the world are currently marked by physical and conceptual conflicts in their design, which places them in a particular urban crisis. Followed by a making-city way that values economic development above social and environmental dimensions, this crisis happens in Brazilian cities especially. In opposition, there is the concept of sustainable urbanism, which sheds new light on discussions about urban space. This concept proposes a new way for the city to build itself. There are, however, certain weaknesses in its theory and applicability, especially when it is used as a basis for urban analysis. With the proposal to seek the praxis of this concept, this research aims to relate components of sustainable urbanism and urban form in the central area of two medium-sized cities in south-eastern Brazil: Franca, in the northeast region of the state of São Paulo, and Uberaba, in the Triângulo Mineiro. Considering that, in Brazil, medium-sized cities have shown the most accentuated growth, it is in this scenario that the research is particularized, taking these two cities and their central areas as study samples. Through methodological strategies that combine a qualitative and quantitative approach, the research discusses, qualitatively, what the metrics of the elements of urban form present, quantitatively, in the spatial cut-outs listed for the analysis. This study is divided into five main stages: theoretical deepening of the themes; selection and characterization of spatial cut-outs; elaboration of parameters for the analysis of urban form; data collection and analysis; and discussion and research considerations. The results highlight a strong similarity between the metrics of the two cities' spatial cut- outs, even considering that their articulations and formal elements are different. They also present numbers lower than what the literature considers desirable in the implementation of sustainable urbanism, in addition to pointing to a possible process of emptying the central area of these two cities. From this, it is possible to say that this study is capable of contributing to scientific research, as well as subsidizing public management and professionals who have the urban as their object of work. Still, the work has the potential to contribute to the formation of more sustainable cities.